Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Last Chance ❯ Last Chance ( One-Shot )

There was no time.

 

Only twenty-four hours to begin with—but that was before, and now, just as he had gripped at it, it was sifting through his fingers. He had to do something—no, someone was doing something for him.

 

All he had to do was let it happen.

 

This was his last chance to drive down the demons that had haunted him for the past decade—and how fitting that he become a demon himself in the process. Heat surged up his throat like vomit and fell back to his stomach a lead brick. He knew that there had been something before, something before today, and struggled to remember it.

 

Trunks—Bulma. For all the years he'd scraped by without relishing the anguished shrieks, restless nights knowing his dreams of crushing the man's bones would never come true, those two had sustained him. More—without his noticing, they had surpassed the role of pacifiers and had become objects of his affection, precious stones he laid proudly into his crown.

 

He collapsed to his knees, and as heat surged up again he was bid to imagine a life where he didn't give a damn if she lived or died. The warmth in his throat swelled, and he wasn't sure if it was in sickness or desire.

 

He remembered watching his son from the future, shocked as the young man died before his own eyes, and his gut recalled the rage he'd felt. It had been dangerous—but not like this rage, persuaded by his whole body, carefully laid out, a banquet.

 

Eyes boring into his back returned him to reality, and through squinted eyes, he prayed to any gods that could convince him: it had never been revenge, it would not be revenge. A fight—a fair, clean fight—the last one.

 

And now it was sifting through his fingers—and it was heat, rage, revenge.

 

Because after this time was up, there could be no more, and as before he'd war against a ghost, and worse, aware—seven years of thinking he'd known, and now an eternity of knowing. And he would die to be reborn empty, at best, and never scour Heaven for the fool, for one more fight.

 

He had no way of knowing what the wizard's magic was—if it was magic at all—or what would happen to him when it sucked him under. Could he fight it off, at least, keeping himself intact, the proud prince for one last battle? Already, dark fingers dug beneath his skull, and he clutched at it. Voices told him to succumb, voices told him to will it away—were they coming from the outside or the inside?—but he knew that if he ever wanted a chance to fight his rival—one last time—he would have to risk it. He would have to give in.

 

Gripping at his hair, he writhed on the floor, screaming, until silence fell, a snow-blanket around them. It melted away as he awoke to sneer the devil's sneer. "Kakarrot."

 

 

...

 

 

He would not find peace today.

 

He would not find peace today.

 

He would not find peace.

 

The voices had gone silent and the fire had scorched his body to stone. There was only one more thing to do.

 

If it failed, he would never see them again.

 

Trunks, Bulma...

 

If it succeeded, and they brought him back—there was still one he could never see.

 

Kakarrot.

 

There was no risk involved.