Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Dragonball Infinity ❯ Chapter Seventeen: Selfish Man ( Chapter 17 )

Bulma closed her eyes again - oddly enough it actually helped to shut out the horror she had felt. She did not see the dead body of her best friend covered in the blood of the prince there when she shut her eyes.

She had confirmed them both dead at least fifteen times before it had begun to sink in. Gokuu was dead, and Vegeta with her. Yamucha had been the one to take them inside, and he had also been the one to spot the pipe that must have been Vegeta's downfall. As that was what her father had discovered had happened to him. A gory puncture wound that had gone straight through the prince from behind.

She listened as her father suggested a theory while he carefully cleaned Gokuu's body - all of them too nervous to send the aliens to an actual mobituary, "He must have been attacked at the console by something from behind. The pipe hadn't been broken, so there were no sharp edges on it. What strength they must have had to do that to him - especially with such a blunt weapon."

"No," Yamucha said, "there was a trail of blood right behind them both. They must have gone in wounded together."

"Actually, Vegeta was the only one wounded."

Looking up, Yamucha blinked in disbelief, "What? But ... then what happened to Gokuu-chan?"

"Don't know yet. All I know is that so far, I haven't found any reason to believe that she had died from either suffocation, or blood loss." He paused to briefly check over her body, white latex gloves on as he pressed gently down on the areas where she was covered by her clothes, "Hm, I didn't feel anything too abnormal either." The doctor sucked in a puff from the cigarette in his mouth before he took it out to blow out smoke slowly, and then put it back in. Scratching at his head in confusion, he then patted the head of the black cat on his shoulder before placing his hands on her lower abdomen, "This area feels a little strange though."

"What do you mean?"

"I just felt her entire body, and Vegeta's pretty much too. They're both so hard from their muscles that it's easy to feel something odd like a wound or such."

Bulma dared to fully face them, and frowned at her father's hands before she said, "So what's wrong with it?"

"It's soft."

She blinked a few times, letting that sink in even as she couldn't rip her eyes from her oldest friend, "... Is she bruised? Maybe it was internal bleeding."

Dr. Briefs retreived another clean wash cloth, and pulled the hem of her shirt to just below her breasts so that she was modestly covered, and wiped down her stomach, "Nothing, Bulma. I can still see obvious muscles, but this is still too soft for someone like her." Glancing up at her and Yamucha, he then asked, "Have you two ever touched her stomach before? Maybe her stomach has always been a bit softer - like a female trait of the Saiyajin."

"Yeah," Yamucha said, "but it's always been hard as a rock."

"Mmn, I'd call this as hard as a dry sponge," the doctor said, and started puffing his cigarette again.

"We should get some machines out to do some testing then," Bulma whispered. "I want to know what happened to her - to them."

What had happened had been a severe case of the heart epidemic that had hit Earth hard in the last year. From what they could tell, Vegeta had been injured before entering the room, and pressed in the commands, all the while carrying Gokuu who must have been having her heart attacked by the virus. He had pushed in the buttons, and pulled out the pipe sometime around that area before laying down to die with Gokuu.

Kuririn broke down, and cried when he heard the news while Bulma finally joined in with him. The two clutched one another's arms for support. For Tenshinhan and Chaotzu, the small emporer sniffled, and wiped his eyes. Piccolo's nostrils flared before he turned away, facing the window to peer outside.

"I imagine that you could do nothing for the infant, of course," he said after a while, glancing back at them.

They all startled badly for they had nearly forgotten about the Namekjin, and Bulma gaped at him, "But I ... I didn't tell you about the baby."

"Baby!?" Tenshinhan lifted up his head, "You mean she and ... him ...?"

He nodded, "I could hear the baby's heartbeat for nearly three months before they left. It was driving me insane."

"But - what? Three months? When we were doing scans and found the baby, it was only in its seventh week of development, and it takes weeks for hearts to even start pulsing during pregnancy."

"For humans, I suppose that's true," Piccolo shrugged, "but Vegeta and Son are full-blooded Saiyajin. Who knows how their bodies really work. Who knows what the Saiyajin are really like at all."

Vegeta frowned up at the enormous ogre sitting at his desk, "To Hell again, I presume."

The red bearded ogre nodded to him, not even glancing down at him, "Have a pleasant second trip down, Vegeta." He paused for a few moments before he remembered something, and shouted after Vegeta's back, "Wait, Vegeta! I have a gift for you."

"A gift? What for?" He stopped, and turned, intrigued by the strange offer.

"For the last few actions of your life, I think you at least deserve to see her one last time."

His jaw nearly dropped before it became firm again, "How long will you let me see her then?"

"Mm ..." he flipped through a few pages of another book on his desk, and then nodded at him, "Considering the rest of your rather colorful record, you have ten minutes."

After a moment, Vegeta shook his head in wonderment before he glared at the large god, "That's no gift for the likes of me. It will be torture."

"I can't lengthen the time limit for any-"

"I'm not talking about the damned time limit!" He raged before he straightened, and then he marched straight to Hell.

Enma's voice rumbled across the room as he turned back to his work, "I know you weren't."

Once Vegeta stepped inside, he was assaulted by several other ogres who scowled at him, one of them saying, "Weren't you here before?"

"Yeah, I've seen that one. Been a while though."

"Caused all sorts of ruckuses, he did," said a green one, and the pink and yellow ogres nodded in agreement.

Pink claimed, "He was only here an hour or two. What god awful noises he made too."

The green ogre snickered, "Aw, ya'll look at 'im, he looks like some house cat now. Not going to cause no more trouble, so it looks."

"Eh heh, ah ..." the yellow ogre frowned suddenly, and bent nearly in half as he leaned over to take a closer look at something, "What's that he got there? He's even got a tail like some house cat. Don't remember a tail."

"Hey ..." Green picked at his ear, "don't we do something with cat tails like those?"

"I'm not a cat," Vegeta sneered, having had enough with the slack-jawed employees of Backwater Hell. "I'm mostly referred to as an ape."

"Ape, huh ..." Pink snapped his fingers then, "Oh, yeah! It's one of them Saiyajin guys, you guys."

"Aw, darn, I wanted to play with 'im."

Taking that in with a calculated frown and a glance between the three, Vegeta asked, "So what's that mean if you guys can't play?"

"Gotta take you to that afterlife you guys got."

His eyes narrowed before memories set in slowly - memories from a life before imprisonment by Freeza, and how, for a few short years afterward, he had dreamed of being able to return to Vegeta-sei in death, "I see ..." When one of them stepped toward him, he abruptly remembered something, "But wait, there's something I need to know."

"Huh? What is it?"

"If a Saiyajin who's done good all their life dies, and goes to Heaven, can you still take them to Ept Pinto'Per'End?"

Yellow scratched his arm almost nonchalantly, "Heaven ain't under our jurisdiction. Won't be switching shift to go up there for the next two hundred and fifty-two years."

Taking a deep breath - an empty one for he was dead - Vegeta nodded, "... When you do go up there, could you send such a Saiyajin down to Ept Pinto'Per'End?"

They looked at each other before Pink took out a heavy notepad from his back pocket, "Never heard of a Saiyajin that went to Heaven, but I can ask around at least when I get up there. What's his name?"

"It's a woman, and her name is Kakarotto ... she might respond to Son Gokuu though."

Pink nodded absently as he jotted it down, "Anything else?"

"... Yeah ... our child might be with her." He shrugged, "I wouldn't know what she would name it though."

He grinned, and gave Vegeta a thumb's up, "Got it. The Saiyajin named Son Gokuu or Kakarotto with child."

Green grunted, and crossed his arms, "We better get you over to your afterlife then so you can wait, yeah? Can't just leave you out in Hell if you don't really belong. Been a while since I've seen a Saiyajin before though. Follow me, will ya." With that, he turned around to stalk over toward a tree in the distance, and Vegeta set after him, frowning ahead at nothing as he kept his arms crossed.

He could wait nearly three centuries to see her again; Vegeta could be patient. He just had to bide his time, and perhaps hone his body - once it was returned to him for his new life in Ept Pinto'Per'End. It would not do to waste away into nothing while she was likely going to grow stronger as well.

"All right, you just need to stand there on that rock, okay?"

Blinking, he looked over at the stone that the ogre was pointing at before he stepped on it, and then crossed his arms over his chest, "Now what?"

"Hold your britches, I'm looking ..." Green muttered to himself, rifling through bushes before he seemed to grasp something, and then yanked hard.

All Vegeta could tell was that it was a lever, but that was all for then the rock he was standing on disappeared, and the last Prince of the Saiyajin race was sucked down into the resulting hole.

Vegeta didn't exactly wake up, but it felt like it for a moment - for he felt rather refreshed and as if he had slept for weeks. He padded his newly returned body down, sitting up slowly as he got used to the gravity again. Looking around his surrounding landscape, Vegeta felt his eyes concentrate on the sand below him, suddenly confused. He gathered up a handful before he let the crimson grains slip out of his hands and back onto the ground. After a few minutes, he rose to gape at the rosy-hued horizon.

Ept Pinto'Per'End was the Saiyajin's afterlife - a very strange afterlife. For every year, another section was added to Ept Pinto'Per'End from Vegeta-sei. Which mean in not so many words that Ept Pinto'Per'End was like a pizza in spherical form. As the planet changed, so each newly added section was changed.

Once Vegeta-sei had been destroyed, Nappa had muttered about how the years would add on slices of outer space instead of their precious planet, yet that was not the case - or so it seemed. Walking around, he began to realize what must have happened, and his crossed arms clenched around himself instead before he shut his eyes with a heavy sigh. Surely, Kakarotto had must have done something about the reincarnation of their planet.

The silly little thing must have wished it back while I was away ...

He stood there a while, taking in the oddly calm scenery, and then looked over at the figures approaching. When they got closer, Vegeta began to realize who they were, and he calmly braced himself for what might become a nasty fight. The rest of the dead Eight landed in front of him, and the groups sized each other up before one spoke.

Turles nodded to him in an awkward greeting before looking around, "No Kakarotto then?"

"No ... are you-?"

"Myself? Yeah," he said, and then laughed with no humor as he looked over at a Saiyajin that looked almost exactly like Turles. In fact, Vegeta thought he was Turles before he had seen the lighter skin and a crossed scar across his cheek. "How does it feel to die like you want to anyway?"

The other man was silent before he shrugged, "The dying itself sucks, but I think it's nice when you can choose your own death."

"What was it like to die screaming in pain the whole way through?" Paragus smirked, his missing eye back where it should have been, and both glinted in sadistic glee toward the prince.

Vegeta shrugged, "I don't know, I was about to ask your son that."

"It sucked," and Brolli became quiet until he seemed to remember something, his brow twitching, "She survived?"

"Her and the baby. She's probably back on Earth by now." Vegeta began stretching his arms out then, cracking his neck, and rolling his shoulders, "They can return my body to me, but they can't get rid of the aches from standing in that fucking line for so long. Typical."

"Well," the man that looked like Turles began to say after chuckling, "I think I'm heading back down a couple hundred Circa. Some of the women there dress in just skirts with their breasts bared."

Nappa sneered, "Don't you have any shame, Captain Bardock?"

The newly named Bardock snorted, and waved him off, "Pfff! Fuck you. I'm dead, so what's it matter? Besides, there's good grog too. Anybody going to follow?"

"I'm in," Turles said after a moment, and the two abruptly grinned at each other as if sharing some secret before they both dashed toward the horizon. Vegeta could see the enormous Gateway waiting there for them.

"Aren't you going to follow your father and uncle?" The memory of some form of himself calling them twins came to him, so Vegeta asked this of Radittsu, and the long-haired Saiyajin shook his head.

"Nah, besides, the further back you go, the more skin they show."

He stared at the man before he chuckled, and shook his head, keeping to himself the memories of finding Kakarotto walking around completely naked. Of course, the prince had seen it as a rather delicious offering, but, a month or so ago, she had told Vegeta that she just liked to be nude sometimes. That hadn't stopped his libido, naturally.

"Care to join me?"

"I don't think so," he said after some thought, "I'd rather not be tempted."

"... I should deck you for this, you know."

Vegeta smirked, no longer looking at Radittsu, but toward the Gateway, "Probably. Why don't you try?"

"Because you'll beat me worse."

"Again, probably."

"So what are you going to do now, Vegeta?"

"I'll train, I think ..." he looked around the barren landscape before he shrugged, "I guess I'll stay here for now. It's going to stay nice and quiet until word gets out that the planet is back."

"You know," Radittsu said suddenly, "it's weird how the scriptures would say one thing when in truth, it was something else."

"What do you mean?"

Radittsu shrugged, and then glanced at the Gateway, both Turles and Bardock long gone, "Well ... like in the scriptures about us. Take the Fourth for example. He was supposed to have had no regard for family whatsoever, right? But Turles never raised a hand wrong to me except in training sessions. Never sneered at me except in jest ..."

After a moment, Vegeta answered him, "Then it's safe to say that the scriptures ... those that wrote the scriptures lied."

"... But Vegeta-sei was destroyed anyway."

"Yes," he said, "of that they told the truth, but the rest of it ... what they didn't like they must have changed so they could be more proud about the downfall of the Saiyajin race."

Nappa surged forward as if angry, "I would never betray you, Vegeta! What would make you think that I'd do such a thing?"

"The reason I killed you, Nappa, was not for any such silly thing as deception," he said after remembering the conditions of the Third. "You had a broken back - I myself barely survived the trip back to one of Freeza's planets. What makes you think you'd have fared any better? That was a mercy killing."

The formerly one-eyed Saiyajin snarled, "So what do you call having my son assassinated as an infant!? Your father had assassins try to kill him when he was born with a ten thousand power level! King Vegeta could have used him against Freeza when he was of age! What do you call that? That's no mercy killing - it's sick."

Without missing a beat, Vegeta snapped his fangs, "It was a mercy killing for the entire race - an attempt to save us. If Freeza hadn't blown up the planet, what do you think he would have done with a young boy with such a power level? The same thing he did with me! Brolli would have immediately been drafted into the army where Freeza would have used his power at his own leisure. Freeza wouldn't have let my father have the chance to use that power."

Paragus gaped before he backed down - his fangs gritting together almost painful sounding. The prince glanced up at Brolli to see if he had anything smart to say as well, but was surprised to find the behemoth gone. Frowning at where the Saiyajin had been, Vegeta then looked around only to see nothing but himself, Radittsu, Nappa, Paragus, and red sand.

"Heh, I can assume that what they said of Paragus and Brolli was correct," Radittsu said, "but I don't think they told the truth about my dad and Turles."

He smirked wryly at the other Saiyajin, still wary of the missing man, "Would you want the populace to know that two of the Saiyajin that helped destroy our race were lecherous, family-loving, booze-guzzling space pirates with a face-splitting-grins?"

"... I suppose not," he said with a smile. "... And I have no jealousy, huh?"

"Yes ... I think they spoke the truth with you. I have vague snatches of memores of ... back then."

The others - sans Paragus - nodded their heads in understanding, while the latter just glowered at Vegeta before he stalked away.

"Radittsu," he murmured when Paragus was out of hearing range, "what do you think 'everything' means?"

"... I suppose you're talking about Kakarotto?" When he nodded, the long-haired man shrugged, "How should I know?"

Vegeta thumbed his bottom lip thoughtfully, "Is it referring to her as she is now, or the Saiyajin she was before she bumped her head? ... And if it is the Kakarotto we know now, then who ...?"

"Hey, Vegeta."

"Hn?"

Radittsu tossed him a recording device which Vegeta caught, and they looked at each other until the taller Saiyajin male shuffled away uneasily, "Mystics screamed whenever I played that around them. Maybe there is something weird about the Saiyajin that Kakarotto would have been if she hadn't bumped her head."

The male frowned at the recording device for a bit, "What is it?"

"When I was younger, a mystic fleed in terror at the sight of an infant. When I went to check this infant out, I found in in the maternal ward, and my new sister was laying next to him.

"Kakarotto" - here he smiled a little fondly - "was wailing loud enough to disturb the dead themselves. I bet even the gods could hear her screams. Their power levels were listed like usual beside their names. Kakarotto's said two, and the other - the one she was laying beside - said ten thousand. My immediate thought was that this child was what made them scream and gnash their fangs. Kakarotto ... was nothing in my eyes at that moment, and yet, as she cried, I noticed that the other babe was whimpering from her loud mouth.

"I heard some doctors joking behind me that he would want to find the bitch that made even him cry as an infant - maybe make her his concubine, or even honor her as his mate." Radittsu glanced at him as if to make sure Vegeta was still listening to the tale, "I just thought it was cool that someone like that could be born. I took out that recorder, and used it on him - hoping to catch a few whimpering sounds out of him amidst Kakarotto's din. I never did. When I was playing it in a bar later to see if I could hear him, there were mystics there. All of them tried to rip off their own ears as they fled."

"Gokuu, this is one of my older students," King Kai gestured to the tall, buff blonde. "He's from Earth too. In fact, many heroes of Earth are actually him!"

She smiled brightly up at him before bowing politely, "Hi! I'm Son Gokuu!"

"My name is Olibu. It's a pleasure," the man said, his arms across his chest as he smiled warmly at the much smaller form of the woman.

"Olibu? Would you show her around? You know this place best, and I'm sure Gokuu would want to know everything about it before she starts up her training regimen," King Kai waved at them, "I got to bread home, and loaf around ... get it!? Bread! Loaf?" With that, the kai peeled into raucous laughter until the two's stares made him clear his throat and cough hard, "Yes! Well! I'll be busy, so I need to catch the next plane out of here. It was nice seeing you again, Gokuu!"

Chuckling, the large man smiled at her again, "Shall we then? I could help you get started if you want."

"Okay, sounds like fun!"

Suddenly her eyes seemed to brighten, but there had been something dark about them before. Olibu hadn't even noticed it until it had been hidden behind that grin, and he became slightly wary as he showed her the vast fields and sparce buildings around them. When he was nearly done, Olibu could no longer hold it in, and he took a blind swing at what might have been wrong, hoping that she had not somehow lied her way into the afterlife for brave, virtuous warriors, "Not that I want to open old wounds, but just how did you die? I don't believe that King Kai told me."

Gokuu blinked up at him a few times before another smile developed on her lips, "Some heart disease. Doesn't that suck? I didn't even get to fight anyone super strong."

Olibu relaxed, laughing softly, "Oh, I see now. Perhaps, we should find you a sparring partner so you can feel better about it."

"Why not you?"

He shook his head, and tried not to sound condescending as he explained, "I'm too strong for you right now. Maybe after a few hundred years, I'll try you on."

"The same goes to you, Olibu!"

The two warriors' heads turned at the new voice, and Olibu saw Paikuhan before he looked down to see West Kai, "You still think I can't take on your star pupil, huh?"

"That's right you can't! ...... This isn't as fun when I'm not shouting at North Kai. Where'd he go?"

"Huh? North?" Gokuu poked at Olibu's shoulder, and he nodded.

"Yes," Olibu told her, "there are four quadrants that these kai reign over. We're from the Northern Quadrant; this is West Kai."

West Kai burst out, "Hey, stop flirting! Where did North Kai go? I heard he was here! One of his fighters died, and he was actually escorting them here himself! That's unprecedented!"

"King Kai went home. Something about bread," Gokuu said, and Olibu stared at her, wondering if she even knew that the North Kai had been telling a terrible joke again.

"Hmph! Well, since he's not here, and since Olibu isn't a challenge, I'll go look for the new challenger so Paikuhan can lord his superiority once again over North Kai's pitiful warriors!"

Immediately, though Olibu tried to shush her, Gokuu raised up her hand to catch their attention, and she smiled, "That would be me."

The purple kai's eyes widened before he pouted, "Paikuhan won't even give her time to blink before she's down for the count - that's no fun."

"Yes," Paikuhan finally spoke, "it's unsportsman-like."

Olibu would have relaxed, but this Son Gokuu didn't let up - she seemed to be itching for a fight of all things! "Don't worry, I won't beat you too badly."

The green alien jerked in shock before the ever permanent frown that Olibu was familiar with twitched, "I doubt you could do much. Besides, I don't want to embarrass you no matter what West Kai says. Maybe in three thousand years. Or when you're faster than the speed of light. You'd have a chance by then."

"You mean like this?" She abruptly held up Paikuhan's belt, and Olibu gaped at her while Paikuhan grabbed his loose pants to keep them up securely. "Come on. Pretty please, fight me. Olibu keeps saying I can't fight anyone just yet, and now you guys are saying the same thing, but you can't know that unless I show my stuff."

"... Son Gokuu," Olibu stepped up, "I would like to test your meddle."

... I told you it wasn't over. Now sit back, and watch the rest of this crap when it comes up.