Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Sojourn ❯ Awakening ( Chapter 1 )

insert standard disclaimer here. I don't own Dragonball Z or any of the characters.

Sojourn, ch 1

Awakening
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I think that was the day I first fell in love with him. I mean, he was gorgeous: tall and muscular, with dark hair that begged to have fingers run through it, and black eyes perpetually gleaming with mischief. If he hadn't been a childhood friend, I would never have been able to talk to him without stuttering, at that tender age of fifteen. But I had grown up knowing him, laughing at his cheesy jokes and being an active participant in his creative pranks. Humor was an escape for him. He used to say that laughter made you feel alive.

There were times, later, when I wondered if I'd ever laugh again.

Anyway, he was always just an older-brother figure to me, until that day. It all changed, then...

Against all of my mother's wishes, he had begun training me in the Art. I knew that I was needed; Earth had so few warriors left. But even were it not so, I would have begged him for it. The call to battle quickened my blood. I might not have known my father, but his fabled strength of will ran through my veins -- the desire to fight, the desire to be strong, the desire to win. And for us, there was even more at stake. Everything.

That morning, they were destroying one of the few places left where people could relax, maintaining the pretense that the world wasn't actually ending. A theme park, in one of the more remote locations. There were families. Children. Visions of the monstrous things done to those innocents will probably haunt my dreams, forever.

The pair of them were riding a carousel, heedless of the bloodied corpses scattered around the ground, like the callously discarded toys that they were. Bright crimson pooled everywhere, in garish contrast to the shimmering viridian of the tidy, well-manicured lawn, as a breeze flew along, gentle as a lover's caress, and set both to dancing. The perversion of such an idyllic summer scene caused me to double over and retch into an unbelievably pristine trash can, as unblemished as the day it was made, miraculously untouched while the world fell down around it.

So many people…I burned with the utter injustice of it. All that these cyborgs knew was an all-consuming lust for chaos and death. I wished, not for the first time, and certainly not the last, for the power to eradicate them, for good. Bitterly, I reflected that even if such strength were now mine, it would make no difference to these poor souls. A day of escape had cost them much more than the jacked-up price of admission tickets. The wind chilled the tears on my cheeks before I even realized that I was crying.

As much as it affected me, it devastated him even more. He could never hide anything; his heart was always on his sleeve, and it was huge. He cared about everyone...he hated to see anything hurt. He flared into Super the instant we touched down in front of them, and his eyes were so bright that I couldn't look at him directly. The afterimage was burnt onto the inside my eyelids.

"Stay back, Bra." I'd never heard him sound so dangerous.

"Hai." I stepped back, out of his way, but sunk into a ready stance anyway, just in case. I knew better than to let down my guard.

He flew at them, faster than I could see, and exchanged a series of earth-shattering blows with the dark-haired one, each of which would have blown a normal human into pieces. They seemed almost equally matched, but out of pure fury my young sensei began to gain the upper hand, until the blonde stepped in, hurling him through half a dozen buildings.

Against just one of them, he might have stood a chance. He had them beat in raw power, individually. But they were also tireless, with an inexhaustible supply of energy, and there was the possibility that he would have depleted his power before managing to kill one. Unfortunately, they were never separated. And the two of them together were more powerful than all of Chikyuu's mightiest fighters combined, felling them one by one, on a day I was too young to remember.

He fought admirably, firing blast after blast, and refusing to acknowledge the pain that must have nearly crippled him. But inevitably, his strength ran out. He faltered, and she moved in for the kill--

"No!" Mindless of my orders -- what was the point of obeying a dead teacher? -- I charged in to deflect the blow, and managed to, if only with the assistance of sheer surprise. They'd both forgotten me. I planted a knee in her gut, doubling her over and knocking the breath out of her with a hiss. Gohan, laid out on the ground, struggled to his hands and knees, and tried unsuccessfully to rise.

Her eyes glittered pale blue death at me. "Little bitch." She kicked me into a wall, hard, and was waiting to meet me on the other side, a ball of energy glowing delicately on her palm. Its deadliness belied by tranquilly cool beauty, like the being that held it.

The raw flash of power seared the exposed flesh of my face and hands, spiraling me through the air to land heavily on the wreckage of a concession stand, unable to move. The dozen or so blasts that followed upset the precarious balance of the structure and the supports collapsed, tumbling me down the roof to land at someone's feet.

Groaning, I opened my eyes to see a pair of very green socks. "Well, what's this?" A deceptively slender hand pulled me off of the ground by the neck of my t-shirt, holding me aloft with an iron grip. I was mesmerized, like a deer in headlights, by the ice-blue stare of those ruthless eyes. Hair darker than night and finer than silk tickled my cheek, flicked into my face by the wind. Disoriented, I wondered how such evil could be so fair.

Even his voice was beautiful. Or would have been, if not for the total lack of inflection. "Juuhachigou, you finish that irritating blonde punk." His finger drew a line of pain down my neck, into a pressure point at the shoulder, making me twist and gasp. "I'm going to have some fun with this one."

Quaking, I realized suddenly that I had much more to fear from him than simple death.

"No." A desperate whisper. My voice didn't work.

He smiled down at me. "Oh, yes, little one."

My mind screamed in wild panic, but my limbs were numb with shock, weighed down by horror. He didn't even feel my feeble blows as he leaned in, crushing his lips down on mine, drawing blood. I was as helpless as an insect snared in a spider's web, my terror redoubling as his grip shifted, one fist knotted in my hair, and the other tearing my shirt from neck to hem--

I found myself caught up in a far gentler embrace, speeding away from the sprawling form of the monster who had nearly--

My mind shut down, and the last thing I saw over his warm, orange-clad shoulder was the unholy fury blazing in the eyes of two abominations never meant to exist, grinning evilly in dogged pursuit.

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I can't describe the feeling that shot through me when I saw him pick her up, and realized what he intended. Horror stopped my breath in my chest. She's practically still a child! And it will be all my fault, for letting her get caught up in this, unprepared! It was too soon in her training for this. I couldn't bear the thought of his hands on her. The very idea of it flooded my veins with a white-hot rage of an intensity I'd never before experienced. Razor-sharp, it sliced through my veins, opening their entire length and flooding my whole body with liquid flame. No!

I moved so quickly that he never saw me coming. "Let her go, you sick bastard!" I punctuated the statement with a flying kick that sent him ass-over-teakettle into the other one. Snatching Bra's slack form out of the air, I sped away as fast as I could. There was no chance of beating them now; she was in complete shock, and worse than useless in a fight. There was no way to protect her and win. Our only hope of survival was to find somewhere to hide.

Of course, when they tired of searching for us, they would most likely just level the entire area. I had to find the most defensible position possible.

Unfortunately, they were far too fast, and there was no time. I only just managed to duck behind a large rock as I felt them approach. Crouching there, with her limp form cradled against my chest, I tried to memorize every detail of her lovely face. It was likely to be the last thing I ever saw, and I wanted to leave this life remembering something beautiful, not the ugly, ravaged ball of carnage and molten rock that our world had become.

Time seemed to stop, in that instant, even though everything happened in mere seconds. I felt as though I studied each line for hours. I could see so clearly the woman she would have become, even more beautiful than Bulma-san. The royal line of Vegetasei had added a regal delicacy absent from the already stunning features of her mother. Even the close-cropped shock of blue hair did nothing to detract from it. Running my fingers through the aquamarine silk brought a lump to my throat as I remembered the day she had cut it. Even in a braid, her nearly waist-length hair was always in the way; it was constantly in her eyes and made too easy a handhold for an enemy. I told her it had to go, and she didn't hesitate, even though I knew how much she loved it. Her face gave away nothing; only her too-bright eyes betrayed what it had cost her. But she was just like me; nothing was too small a price to pay for the power to defeat the androids. We were so alike.

With a silent prayer I folded myself around her as the world flared red, making us as small as possible, and then everything faded to black.

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I was thrust into awareness by a sharp, bittersweet taste on my tongue. Senzu? I could barely breathe; something heavy lay across the upper half of my body. The strong smell of blood jolted me into awareness. Gohan! He was dead weight upon me, nearly crushing me, but I had to swallow tears when I realized he had been sheltering me. I could see shrapnel embedded in his back.

I gently lifted him off of me, and screamed aloud when I saw the source of the blood covering us both. His left arm had been severed just above the elbow. I quickly tore a strip off of my already ruined shirt and applied a makeshift tourniquet. He was still breathing, but barely, and was already dangerously cool from loss of blood.

My poor mother must have nearly had a heart attack, when I showed up carrying him over my shoulder, half-naked and soaked in blood. She recovered quickly though, efficient as always, and had him stabilized by the time the doctor arrived.

I sat with him after that, holding his hand, unable to leave.

"Gohan...I'm so sorry..." The crushing guilt was inescapable. He had come to so much harm protecting me, because I was too weak to do it myself. I was completely useless, a disappointment to all of the training he had instilled in me.

I dropped my head and sobbed, wanting to bury my face in his chest, but too afraid to touch anything other than the one hand he had left. "It's my fault--"

I stopped abruptly when I felt his fingers twist free of mine and reach up to stroke my cheek, weakly. "Bra-chan...my gakusei..." His tired voice was nearly a croak. "Don't cry."
(AN: gakusei means 'student')

I bit my lip, trying to gain enough control to talk coherently. "But you're so...and your arm...all because of me--"

His index finger shut me up by touching my lips. One eyebrow raised. "You didn't blast it off." His brow furrowed in mock confusion. "Did you?"

His pathetic attempt at humor almost made me start bawling again. "Baka!" I choked out. "How can you make jokes? How will you fight them now!"

Grinning wanly, he quipped, "One arm is all I need."

He was so strong. Nothing ever got the best of him. I tried to hide my face as the tears started again, but his grip was suddenly unbreakable as he cupped my chin and forced me to look at him.

"Bra. Stop it. We were overmatched, and I should never have let them get that close to you. We've barely begun your training." He paused. "Of course, if you had stayed put like I told you--"

"If I'd stayed put like you told me, you'd be a black mark on the ground!" I shouted, but his satisfied smirk told me he'd only been baiting me, to lure me out of my guilty musings.

I gave him a watery smile, and his eyes were suddenly dark with a smoldering emotion I couldn't name. The breath caught in my throat. He drew his thumb over my cheek, nudging my face infinitesimally closer to his--

Abruptly, he seemed to come back to himself, drawing a ragged breath. His hand came up to tousle my hair, like a child's. Was his smile just a bit forced? Utterly confused by the surging rush in my veins, I could only stare at him.

"Bra-chan, go to bed. Don't think you're going to get a break tomorrow because I'm stuck in this bed..."

Numbly, I nodded. He looked so tired. "Oyasumi nasai, sensei."
(AN: Oyasumi nasai = 'good-night', sensei = 'teacher')

He mumbled something vaguely like a reply, eyes closed. Standing furtively in the doorway, I had to watch the rise and fall of his chest for another five long minutes before I could make myself leave.

I realized then how much I loved him, as more than just a friend or brother. I loved him with both the raging intensity of a teenage crush, and the quiet depth of a woman's total devotion. Forced into unseasonable adulthood by the harsh life we lived, my feelings for him ran all the way to the core of my being. He'd saved me from a fate I'd never imagined, almost died defending me, and although more seriously injured himself, he gave the last senzu on the planet to me.

Is it any wonder I fell head over heels for him?

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She's only fifteen! You're a disgrace! Ever since that night, I had been unable to stop thinking about her as more than my student. That smile...it had felt like it existed only for me. It awakened strange, totally inappropriate desires toward my almost-kid-sister. I couldn't stand to look at myself. There is a word for people like that.

Determined to behave decently, I strove to keep all contact strictly business. But teaching inevitably requires physical demonstration, and having to touch her at all was driving me insane. I felt like such a lecher.

One day, I snapped. Playfully, she twisted in my grip as I corrected her form and hooked a foot behind my knee, spilling us both to the ground. It was nothing we hadn't done a million times before. It was sort of a game with us, each always trying to catch the other off-guard; she had only ever managed to surprise me once before. Unfortunately, I was driven well beyond distraction at this point.

The breath knocked out of me, I could only glare at her as she sat on my stomach, laughing. "You weren't paying attention!" The feel of her legs on either side of my waist was intolerably tempting. You pervert!

More roughly than I'd intended, I threw her off of me, with enough force to send her sprawling on the lawn. "Baka!" I barked. "How do you ever expect to improve, when you're not even serious about training? I was light-years beyond these simple katas at your age!"

Not exactly true. I wasn't much further along, and I had started training a lot earlier. But I knew she would only hear the derisive scorn. She flinched as though slapped, raw hurt evident in her ocean eyes. Turning abruptly, she blasted off in the direction of the beach.

Someone clearing their throat behind me made me jump. Wheeling around, I saw Bulma, leaning against a tree, holding a pitcher and two glasses.

She raised one elegant blue eyebrow. "I thought you two might like some lemonade."

She must have seen the whole thing. My cheeks flamed. "Bulma-san, I--"

"Gohan." Her tone was serious, but she wasn't angry. "I think you should apologize to Bra. She has no idea what's bothering you."

The thought that her mother might made my blood run cold. I glanced at her in horror. She merely nodded. Burning with unbearable shame, I opened my mouth to profess my miserable apology, but before I could commence groveling, she interrupted.

"Oh, for the love of -- Gohan, knock it off! You haven't done anything wrong."

Nearly swallowing my tongue, I stared at her in shock. "She's fifteen!"

Unfazed, she continued, "I know that you genuinely care about her. Besides, she turns sixteen this month." She leveled a deadly look at me. "I am not saying that you should try anything. But sixteen isn't that far from eighteen, and I think you can wait that long."

Glancing toward the direction her child had gone, she said softly, "I know that she cares about you. But she's young, and unsure. She doesn't know how to act, so she tries to pretend nothing has changed. It's very difficult for her."

Turning back to me, she touched my shoulder briefly. "But not nearly as much so as it is for you. Waiting for someone to fully return your love is so hard..." Her look was almost wistful, and not directed at me. She was looking inward, toward something in the past I could only guess at. But I had a fairly good idea.

Sighing, she said, "Gohan, I know that it will be worth it, a hundred times over, if you can just be patient."

Then she smiled at me, and I wondered how any man, Prince or no, could have withheld even his very soul from her, had she but asked.

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From the window, I watched him leave, searching for my distraught daughter. Seeing him like that, so hopeful and earnest, brought tears to my eyes. He was so much like his father.

Goku, I miss you. If only you had lived, perhaps none of this would have happened...

If only...If only I could get that machine to work. I could go back and save Son-kun, and--

A proud, familiar face formed in my mind, cold and bereft of expression, but the glittering obsidian eyes were blazing with heat, and the finely sculpted lips were gentle where they grazed mine...

I shook my head to clear the memory, before the remembered pain could fully take root and render me useless for the remainder of the evening. Daydreaming was pointless. I was almost sure, that even if my invention finally worked, that changing the past would only affect another future, not mine.

I would never see him again, and never know if--

Desolate, I consoled myself with the prospect of my daughter and Goku's son. I loved him like my own, and could have asked for no greater match for my only child. Brave, strong, and yet gentle, he was the best of Goku's strength and Chichi's mind put together. I only hoped that the wait would not be too hard on him.

As it turned out, my fervent wish was unnecessary. He would not be the one left waiting.

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It didn't take me long to find her. I knew exactly where she would be. She had always loved the ocean; she'd sit staring at it for hours, watching the sun pour glittering motes of light over the waves as it began its descent, the sky changing colors like a fickle debutante before a ball: red, then magenta, then violet, and indigo, and finally, black. After that, she would drink in the sparkling stars, picking out the constellations I'd shown her as a child, bright points of light against the ebony velvet of the night sky.

She heard even my near-silent footfalls on the cliff edge. In husky voice, without turning around, she said, "Look, Gohan. They're so beautiful: the ocean and the stars." Then she turned to me, and I saw the standing tears brimming the orbs as deep as the ocean before us. Windows to a soul much older than the teenaged body it inhabited. I wished suddenly that I could somehow give her back the childhood she had missed.

She spoke again, voice breaking. "They never change. The rest of the world crumbles apart, but they stay the same. Still beautiful, but so cold..." Her breath hitched in a sob.

Stepping closer, I touched her shoulder with a hand that trembled slightly. "Bra-chan...I'm sorry." She was shivering, chill to the touch. I resisted the fierce impulse to take her in my arms.

I was completely out of my element, more lost and frightened than the child Piccolo abandoned to survive alone in the wilderness at five years old. Wanting to touch her, but deathly afraid.

Being herself, she made the decision for me, throwing herself into my chest and sobbing. For long moments I simply stroked the pale silky head and tried to figure out my next move. Quieting, she looked up at me, gifting me with a tiny, wondrous smile. It melted the ice of indecision encasing me, and I touched her face lightly, then her lips, drawing a finger slowly across the roseate curve of the bottom one. Bending slightly, I brushed them uncertainly with my own.

And then suddenly I felt that I was the student and she the teacher. She wound her fingers through my hair and drew my mouth again to hers, with a force that brooked no opposition. Some time later, we drew apart and simply stared at each other. I sat down against the lone tree standing guard at the apex of the cliff wall, and pulled her down with me. How long we rested there, her head on my chest and our arms twined around each other, I can't remember. But at one point, we exchanged the whispered words that were, by that time, almost unnecessary to utter.

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The first rays of the sun touched my face with their bright fingers, and I buried my face against the warmth next to me, unwilling for some reason to awaken. After a moment, I realized that I was outside, at my favorite thinking spot, and I was not alone.

Gohan.

Memory of the previous night returned, and I smiled against his shirt. He loved me. I wasn't just a child to him. His soft slow breaths against my ear were like the sweetest music, and I felt a pang of loss when he pulled away, holding me at arms length. He looked at once both happy and terrified.

"Your mother is going to kill me!"

I started to giggle, but my amused reply was lost in the sound of an explosion. Standing at the cliff's edge, we saw the source. The androids were once again decimating South City. Flying down to investigate, we examined the wreckage, searching halfheartedly for survivors. We knew by now that there would be none.

A blast flared out from the east, unnaturally illuminating the early dawn sky. I got the usual 'you stay here' look from my sensei as he prepared to face them yet again.

"I'm going with you." The determination in my words brooked no room for question.

My sensei was not fazed. "No, you're not," was the calm reply.

"Baka! Don't be stupid!" A streetlight lay near my feet, uprooted and twisted into a pretzel. I kicked it across the ruined street and crossed my arms angrily over my chest. "You're throwing your life away, fighting them alone!"

"Perhaps." His expression was completely closed off. Lights blazed in the distance, where they were destroying another section of the city. Breathtaking flashes of brilliant azure, gold, rose and green, like some warped version of the aurora borealis.

"Don't do this!" I pleaded. "Let me come with you. Together, we have a better chance--"

"Together, we still have less than one percent chance of winning." His voice was glacially indifferent, but his eyes were bottomless pools of black desolation.

My chin lifted. "It's still a better chance." I placed a hand tentatively on his arm, corded and shaking with an emotion belied by the chill voice. "You know they will come looking for me eventually. I'd rather die fighting, with you."

He flinched away. "There is no way--" he began, but I cut him off.

"You know I will just follow you when you leave, anyway," I intoned flatly. "You can't afford to waste the power necessary to stop me."

His shoulders hunched in defeat, and I knew a moment of remorse. I hated being so blunt with him, but his stubbornness left me no choice.

"All right." The words were ice.

Elated, I squealed in delight, "Come on, let's go!" Turning away, all attention directly fiercely at our target, I had none left to spare for the quick jab from behind that rendered me unconscious.

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I'm sorry, Bra. You're not ready, and at least one of us has to survive. You are our hope, now. You have the potential to be the strongest of us all.

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The irritating drip of glacially cold water on my face jerked me back into consciousness. For a moment, I wondered peevishly why I was lying out in the rain. Then--

Oh no, Gohan!

I raced around frantically, trying to find him. There was no trace of his ki anywhere, and the lack of things blowing up seemed to indicate that the monsters had left the premises. The deluge of rain assaulting the city was freezing cold, and chilled me to the bone.

Suddenly, I sensed the tiniest trace of him. Barely an echo of his usually powerful energy. Rounding a corner, I cried out in despair.

"No!"

He lay half-submerged in a puddle turned translucent crimson by the many wounds marring the clean lines of his body. From where I stood, he appeared to be dead. "No. No! GOHAN!"

Raging loss tore through me, alongside incredulous disbelief and anger at the world that had forced me to endure so much already. Just last night, I had lain in his arms with a feeling of safety totally foreign to me, ever since complete awareness of our hopeless situation had been thrust upon me as a child. For the first time since losing that innocence, I had felt completely at peace. And now I would never have that feeling again. Never see him smile at me again. Never hold him again, or hear him tell me--

A wordless scream of rage tore itself from my throat, as I clenched my fists and rose off of the ground. Swirling energy surrounded me, and I pulled it in from the air around me, drawing it in, sucking it into the core of my being as if it were a life-giving substance that I desperately needed. It felt as though every nerve and synapse began to glow white-hot, and my vision shifted to a colorless blend of light and dark, etching everything into sharp relief. The broken body of my would-be lover in a water-filled crater on the ground. The scorch marks in concentric rings around him, from the blasts that had thrust him there. The beautiful, scarred face that appeared simply to be in quiet repose instead of the endless slumber of death.

This last image pushed me over the precipice I only then realized I had been precariously balanced upon, and suddenly my power jumped ten-thousandfold times its magnitude. It felt like I was on fire, but it was part of me, and I felt no pain. The maelstrom of kinetic energy rose every hair on my body. My feral scream of fury was otherworldly even to my own ears. The bitter taste of vengeance was on my tongue and I hungered for the feel of their blood on my hands. I would bathe in the fountain of it. They would rue this day.

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End Chapter 1

Hope you liked it :) Email me at sango_chan@hotmail.com to be notified when new chapters are posted.

Oh, and here is a picture of mirai Bra...