Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Breath of Sorrow ❯ Shall We Dance? ( Chapter 9 )

Pan collapsed into Trunks' arms the moment he reached her, and he didn't demand to know what was wrong. He could smell the blood from her injured side, and he could what had happened from the fact that her clothes were bundled in her arms with a black box gripped to her chest as if though it were her only lifeline to reality. He flew her to the mansion, and he found Gohan and Vegeta conversing quietly in the living room.

 

“What the fuck happened!” Gohan rushed to Trunks, easing his daughter's body into his strong arms, his large black eyes reflecting anger, worry, and pain. Trunks and Vegeta stood next to each other as the eldest son held the most precious gift in his lift against his chest and closed his eyes in silent prayer to whatever gods there were for her safe return. “Pan-chan, I was so worried about you.” He growled softly into her hair.

 

Pan gazed up at her father and smiled weakly. “Daddy, I paid for it. I got it for us.” Pan whimpered softly. Gohan sat down on the couch with his daughter still in his arms, holding her against his chest, gazing down into her onyx eyes. When he expected to see the soft light of her innocence there, he saw nothing but a tormented pain and gripping emptiness, and his heart wrenched. Someone has stolen the only innocence that he'd gripped to for eight years.

 

The simple fact of the matter was that when Goku had left his eldest son alone, he had gripped to the next precious thing to him, and that had been his family. Particularly his beautiful and intelligent daughter. While Vegeta regarded Pan as a mild annoyance for her innocent intrusion into their misery, Gohan savored her smile, her shining eyes, and he protected her with everything that he had within him.

 

There had been a point when Goten had actually asked Gohan what his feelings towards Pan exactly entailed, but that had set Gohan off so badly that Goten was beaten within an inch of his life and threatened with castration if he ever suggested an atrocity again. Gohan had repeated over and over that she was precious to him while Goten had wiped the blood away from his split lip in annoyance and conceded that his assumption had been wrong. It only went to prove to the quietly watching Vegeta, that at the time, the sons of Kakarot were not so different in their views of their family.

 

He watched over the family of Goku with careful eyes, making sure that he wasn't too close or too far, and even though he was disgusted with the soft disposition that Bra had given him in his life, he nearly required it to put up with Gohan's ignorance of their race, Goten's constant trouble making, and Pan's utter innocence that was, on occasion, annoying and destructive. Goten… Goten was his savior. Where Pan provided their small dysfunctional world with innocence and laughter, Goten provided him with the comfort of an outlet for his frustrations.

 

Gohan demanded his separation from the proclamation of his race, and Vegeta accepted it and understood it, but it disgusted him. The Saiya-jin race was proud, and Gohan had taken that pride and shed it to be a father to a painfully innocent brat and a husband to a harpy wife that had no sense of humor. At least Vegeta told himself that. But Gohan loved Pan, and that was no deception. Even as he cradled her against his chest, he breathed out words of love and gentleness. Something that would have never been seen on Vegeta-sei.

 

“Got what, baby? What did you get?” He asked softly as he smoothed her hair back from her face. There was something different about her. Gohan could smell the blood from her side, but there was a different scent about her. Instead of the fresh, flowered scent that usually wafted from her, this scent was earthier and more mature. It confused him slightly, and he held her against his chest and rocked her as if though she were still a small child. “Tell me what you got, Pan-chan.”

 

“The box. Trunks. Has it. Open it, Daddy. You'll know what it is.” She whimpered. Trunks handed the box to Vegeta, and he nodded to the Prince. Gohan nodded for Vegeta to open the box, and as if though he feared and desired the contents, Gohan looked away as Vegeta gingerly took it from his son, the dark eyes filling with confusion at the structure of the odd looking box, and he pulled the clasp on the box.

 

The moment the box was unclasped, the dragon radar, haphazardly thrown on the coffee table, make the sweetest noise that Trunks had ever heard come from a computer in his life. It beeped. His voice caught in his massive chest, and he clasped his hands together in front of him in nervousness. He stared as Vegeta slowly opened the box, and time slowed as the piercing charcoal black eyes widened and then softened in understanding of what Pan had given to them.

 

Gohan's eyes widened as Vegeta pulled the contents from the box and held it up. The four star Dragon Ball gleamed innocently in the light while held in an immaculate white-gloved hand, and as the light in the room glinted off of it, a proud light slid into Pan's eyes as she gazed at the object. She didn't regret her decision, and as she watched the eyes of the prince, her decision was reinforced tenfold. “I paid for it.” She whispered. “It's ours. She…”

 

“How did you pay for this, Pan?” Gohan suddenly cut her off, looking into her face with horror. “What could you have given for a Dragon Ball?”

 

The question for Pan was not what she had paid to receive the last of the Dragon Balls, but instead, she saw what everyone had received. A quiet, complete peace settled in her heart as she watched the most beautiful emotion slide into the deep, piercing eyes of a man who had proclaimed himself to have no desire for useless notions such as emotions. As Vegeta raised his gaze to Pan, she watched the glimmer of a beautiful world rise in his eyes. Hope. The darkness was pushed aside, and the price had been her innocence, and she didn't care. It had been worth it for that one split second when Vegeta realized that his reason for living was not lost.

 

In the strange workings of her tired, abused, and drugged mind, she remembered her grandfather's favorite mode of transportation, and she tried to tell Gohan how sorry she was that she'd never be able to touch Nimbus again. “I….I fell from flight.” She whispered. “Nimbus dropped me from flight.” To Gohan and Trunks, she was making no sense, speaking in riddles that had them glancing at each other and then towards Vegeta.

 

Vegeta stared for a minute, and slowly, he stood, handing the box and the Dragon Ball to Trunks. “Pan, why did Nimbus drop you from flight?” He asked pointedly. He crouched next to the couch, one of his hands going to her hair next to Gohan's, and at that moment, his nostrils flared and his eyes widened. “Pan, what have you done?” He sat at her feet and looked up to Gohan as he gently pressed a gloved hand to the inside of Pan's knee, forcing her to open her legs slightly.

 

Diana had washed her wounds. Oh yes, she had washed away her stench from Pan's delicate skin, but the one thing she left was the only mark that would be permanent in the girl's life. Splattered and soaked through the crotch of the blue flannel pants was the most precious gift that Pan had to offer, and Diana had left it as a statement of her power over each and every one of them. First she stained Goten, and now, she had removed the most precious of gifts from each of their lives and replaced it with a woman who knew the meaning of hate. The blood of innocence, once spilled, marked a girl as a woman for a lifetime.

 

“Oh Jesus Christ!” Gohan cried out in pain. He gripped his daughter to his chest while he shook from sorrow and rage, Pan's fingers tangled in his soft shirts, her soft sobs muffled out by the silk of his gui. “Oh my God, Pan! Why! Fucking WHY!” He cried out brokenly into her hair. She sobbed harder, and Gohan's tears began to mingle with hers as they poured down his cheeks and dripped on her skin.

 

Pan's world was almost a dream as she inhaled the familiar, comforting scent that both Gohan and Goten shared, and her beautiful onyx eyes closed in odd, pained contentment as she relished the safety that came from the arms around her. “Because someone had to give something to receive this in return.” She whispered. Vegeta's eyes narrowed at the statement. Truth from the mouth of a child. Of a woman.

 

“Who did this!” Gohan demanded. The ferocity of his tone was not lost to Vegeta, and he prepared himself for the task of controlling him again. There was only one being above Gohan in strength, and Vegeta had not attempted that ascension in nearly ten years, and as a result, he guessed that his body probably would not be able to handle the amount of brute energy needed to bypass his primitive form and control it.

 

“Do you really have to ask?” Vegeta asked as he stood. His voice held the same air of indifference, but in truth, his eyes were burning, and his entire body was clenched, begging to beat the life out of Diana Shelton. “Her stench is on the clothes that cover Pan's body, and I can see her handy work on her side.” Gohan looked up in confusion and Vegeta rolled his eyes. “If you spent more time with your race, baka, you would know that we've found another.”

 

Gohan's eyes nearly bulged. “Another Saiya-jin?!”

 

“Indeed.” Vegeta flatly replied. “Unfortunately, her programming is lacking. If you had been near when we'd discovered all of this, you wouldn't be at a loss of words at the moment.”

 

“Wait…” Understanding dawned in Gohan's eyes, and he looked down to his daughter in horror. “A woman did this to you?” She looked away from her father in shame, but he would have none of it. He clenched her against his chest and kissed her forehead gently, and he still rocked her, soothing her, smoothing her hair back, and reminding her that she was his entire life. “I love you, baby.” He whispered softly against the skin.

 

“She's not a woman. She's a monster.” No one had paid attention to the lavender headed prince as he stood quietly, his fists clenched, body shivering with sheer rage as he watched them discover the price that Pan paid for Goku's return. When Vegeta turned to face his son, he was met by a terrifying and yet magnificent vision. Trunks' azure eyes were narrowed in rage, and the beautiful muscled body was tensed in perfect preparation to kill the creature that had desecrated perfect innocence, and when he looked into his father's eyes, he growled softly.

 

“I will kill that bitch, and I will put her damn head on a pike.” He seethed. Gohan held up a single hand, and both the men's attention went to him. As he cradled his daughter against his chest, he looked at both of the royal princes, and he, the third class, commanded them with soft, but firm, steeled words.

 

“You won't kill her. In my hands, she's already dead.” Gohan's words chilled Vegeta's blood, and Trunks' eyes widened as the father stood with his daughter in his arms. “Baby, do you want to stay with Bra tonight? We have something we have to do for you.”

 

In her incoherent state, she nodded weakly, and Gohan carried her up the stairs, away from the sight of Vegeta and Trunks. “You need to stay here, Trunks.” Vegeta demanded of his son.

 

“Why!” Trunks suddenly stepped forward, his fist clenching and shaking at his father. “Pan is the best of us, and I will be damned if I sit here and do nothing about it!”

 

“Silence, boy!” Vegeta snarled. “As a prince, your father, and your friend, this is my command to you, and you WILL listen to me. This is not your fight. She is not your daughter, and she is not your mate. She is Son Pan, and Son Gohan will avenge her. Do you understand me?” Trunks didn't understand, but he respected his father and headed up the stairs to keep Bra company and watch over his precious Pan.

 

 

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Diana was sitting on top of the apartment building, her feet dangling off the edge, looking sixty floors down with tired blue eyes. Jaded and quiet, she regarded the life down below her with a mild disgust. She wondered if Pan would be watching the sunrise in a few minutes as she would be, and caught herself at that thought, berating her momentary lapse of humanity. Emotions were useless, just like that girl was useless to her for anything but a toy to play with.

 

As she looked out over the milling workforce beneath her, hurrying to their places of employment, she sighed. A hurried life at least was some kind of life, and the daily person didn't realize how much of a blessing it was to have something to occupy their mind from the daily pain of living. Life. What a joke. People talked about life like it would last forever, and they didn't realize just how short it was. She rolled her eyes at the idea that she would probably live to be thousands of years old as Vegeta had told her. What joy was living for so long if there was no happiness in life?

 

Happiness was a fleeting emotion for her, and as she watched the people swarm below with such purpose, she found herself envying them. There was no rhyme or reason to hate. It just simple existed. She could fool herself into thinking that she hated for certain reasons, but yet, it wouldn't be the truth. Diana had no logical reasons to hate as much as she did, and she wouldn't kid herself about that matter. She could have blamed it on her adoptive father's constant absence from her as a child, or she could blame it on her mother for pushing her to do something she was never interested in. She could blame it on her horrible dreams of her biological parents, as she assumed them to be. In the end, there was no reason for her hatred.

 

Diana embraced her hatred and insanity as a shield from her dreams. When she saw the woman's eyes in her mind, all she could remember was love as the man beat her mercilessly, screaming at her for bearing a daughter instead of a son. She looked on him with affection as his hands tore her body apart and left scars that would sink deeper than just her skin. If this is what love allowed, then what use was it to her? What did it provide for her life besides the toleration of brutal force combined with promises of mutilation and death? Diana's resounding opinion was that it provided nothing.

 

She wondered why humans reached constantly for more than they knew. Discovery and knowledge was paramount for their survival, and it confused her to no end that such a volatile and delicate race like that could be so greedy in just the desire for sheer knowledge. Yes, they swarmed this planet like a colony of ants, but at the same time, while they populated the earth, they brought with them the dreams that haunted her, and the desires that she could see so plainly written in their faces. Some hungered for money, and others hungered for power. There was always the hunger to know more and to push for discovery, even at the hands of destruction.

 

Pan? Pan had hungered for love. She constantly reached for it in a myriad of gentle words, touches and offerings of smiles and sparkling eyes. Her knowledge of love now contrasted with the sheer hatred in her head, and Diana could only feel a strange kind of sadness that she had now added one more to the flock of enlightened beings on the face of the earth. Because of Diana's conquests, actions, and words, there were now quite a few people that fed off of hatred instead of love. In the end, their reach for knowledge and their dreams for something better had landed them exactly where Diana predicted it would. Those that were once dreamers now drowned in a sickening, rotting swamp of knowledge and broken hopes, and nothing would save them from their fate at the hands of the death of their hearts.

 

She closed her eyes to the sights around her and pulled her knees to her chest. She could feel Gohan. He was furious. She wanted him to be. She wanted him to know the price that his daughter had paid for his family's folly. Diana snorted to herself in disgust, and opened her eyes as the sun began to come up. That entire family was so blinded by their sorrow for this so-called hero that they ignored each other and allowed themselves to be torn apart by their petty desires, ignoring the greatest gift that this hero had left them.

 

The legacy of Goku was the greatest mystery to her. Being in the labs at Capsule Corp, she had listened to Vegeta scold Trunks for doing things that this `Kakarot' would have done, and then, as a strange happening, she discovered that the `Goku' that Goten spoke to Bulma about was the same person. As Vegeta had spoken of him, she would have assumed him a complete idiot with no sense of respect or concept of time, but as Goten had spoken of him, he was a hero and a savior of the world. So maybe he was a mixture of the two.

 

Bulma had mistakenly told her of Goku from her point of view, and she had explained about the Dragon Balls. The elderly woman, the wife of a prince who would never age, seemed so young in her azure eyes, but her body betrayed her age, and to Diana, it was a tragedy. She saw no selfishness in Bulma, and as a result, she appreciated her devotion to her husband and her friends. While Vegeta sought power and constant knowledge, Bulma only gave to her husband, and it left a bitter taste in Diana's mouth that the prince was so blind to the gift that he had in his hands.

 

It turned out that in the eyes of Trunks' mother, that Goku's legacy was not something that was obvious or tangible. Instead, it was the simple memory of his selfless sacrifice for the world. Every time he'd died, they'd wished him back, and in the end, he made a decision for himself. Chose to be selfish just one time out of an entire life lived for others, and it destroyed everyone around him. Bulma understood his decision, and she, out of everyone including ChiChi, was the only one that didn't harbor bitterness towards her oldest friend. Bulma loved Goku just as selflessly as she loved her husband, and Diana found no fault in the woman. Except for one. Bulma never asked for anything in return.

 

Diana's reverie was broken as she felt two ki signatures rapidly approaching, and she sighed in annoyance. She wasn't in the mood for a fight, but judging by the signature of Vegeta, both were extremely pissed and itching to pound her into a bloody paste across the Tokyo asphalt. She stood, and silently rising above the city in a flare of green ki, she led the two coming Saiya-jins away from civilization. Diana had her fill of killing useless humans for the time being, and this…she was aware that the coming fight would probably mean her life, but strangely enough, she didn't care. Dying would be a welcome disruption from her blind, hate filled life.

 

The sun began to rise, and the new day began, and it began with a fiery sky and soothed darkness. As Diana flew away from the city, she closed her eyes and spiked her energy, taunting the two following her, and satisfied that got the point, she disappeared into the mountains with fury hot on her trail, demanding penance for the very thing she had punished others for. Diana, in the end, was marked as a disgusting addition to the Saiya-jin race. A robber of innocence and a bringer of destruction. And Diana would have had it no other way.

 

 

************

 

“There.” Vegeta pointed to the top of a cliff, and Gohan nodded. Vegeta nearly feared for Diana's life, but this was a battle that she would have to fight herself. She had unwittingly released the most dangerous of all the Saiya-jins alive, and she would have to pay the penalty. In truth, Vegeta did not believe that Pan's innocence was taken from her forcefully as Diana had Gohan believe when she'd sent the girl back.

 

Vegeta could scent no battle on Pan's body, and he could smell no fear on her. Only sorrow. Unending, choking sorrow. Vegeta knew that Gohan would have viewed the situation differently if he'd known that Pan give herself willingly to Diana, and so he had kept his observations to himself. She had wanted Gohan to know the price his daughter paid for his family's selfishness. It was obvious that even in her insanity and distinct distaste for innocence and goodness, even Diana had a soft spot for the girl. She had spared Pan the pain of being a whore to her family. Diana had shown mercy.

 

As they neared the cliff, Diana stood with her back to them, quietly looking out over the silent landscape, aware of their approach but not willing to turn just yet. A beautifully white embroidered black gui wrapped around her muscles in delicate myriad of folds and creases, and it flapped behind her in the wind as did her long, ebony mane. When she turned, Gohan's eyes widened as they landed. “You!”

 

Diana smirked and pressed her palms to her hips in a bored manner. “Yes, me. What were you expecting? A pretty blonde?” She laughed at him. “You truly are pathetic. So concerned about being a father that you've forgotten your blood!” She let out another rolling laugh, and she turned to Vegeta. “And you! Foolish prince of a dying race, what makes you think that I am the savior of your people? Do I look benevolent to you now?”

 

Gohan growled and stepped forward, his energy suddenly swirling around him in rage. “You will pay for what you did to Pan! To my daughter!” His dark eyes flashed his fury, and a pure, red energy burst around him, and the power of the Kai was released into the air, making the hair on the back of Vegeta's neck stand up. He had never seen Gohan so angry before, but he stepped back and allowed the man his rein. It was time for him to unleash his blood.

 

“You don't scare me with your pitiful excuse for power.” Diana snorted. “Would you like to see true power, Son Gohan? Too many years I've held it back. Too many years I've seethed. Quietly. Writhing in my own misery. This… the power of hatred. This is your god.” As she stepped forward, Vegeta's instincts began to scream that there was something wrong. Her power level was raising way too quickly for it to be natural, but in his rage, Gohan hardly noticed.

 

The beautiful woman was enveloped in the brightest green ki that had ever graced the sight of the prince, and as she walked, the earth trembled with each, deliberate step, making animals run to the trees and the loose rocks roll down the mountain side. Each step, she increased her power until on the ground, she left burning footprints, and the rocks began to melt under her touch. She stopped in front of Gohan, and she smirked, her power level still rising, and Gohan felt a sudden familiarity of the signature, but yet, it was strange.

 

Gohan's hair calmly spiked into blonde, and he faced her, a raging beast, beautiful and feral, his body shivering with the rage that was being poured into his heart by the rape of his precious, innocent daughter. He stretched into a fighting stance, and he motioned for Diana to attack, his eyes suddenly going empty except for the blood lust of battle. He glared at the woman with all the rage pent up inside of his massive body, and in that moment, Vegeta saw Goku, fighting for the right to live and fighting for the right of his loved ones to live.

 

“Stupid man. Didn't I tell you once already? You don't scare me!” With an earth shattering, terrifying scream, Diana looked to the heavens, and fear gripped Vegeta's instinct as her power spiked to only a level that he'd known from a Saiya-jin once in his lifetime, and he wondered if there could have been another with that kind of brute strength and power. The beautiful, ebony hair that cascaded to her hips now spiked, spread out over her shoulders in a golden mane, and when she lowered her crazed eyes to Gohan, his eyes widened. She was insane.

 

The insanity seeped from every pore of her body in an exquisite smell, drawing Gohan to the battle as a flame would draw a moth. Her emerald eyes sparkling in powerful hatred, she stepped forward, and she smirked. Vegeta knew this power, and it gripped his instinct in mind numbing fear, and he, the prince of all Saiya-jins, fell to his knees as Gohan stood strong, his eyes burning. Vegeta feared that if Gohan could not ascend to his most powerful form, he would die at the hands of this monster.

 

She was Legendary. Full of power. Ascension was a relief to her lithe body as she released the energy that had been pent up for so long. As she ascended further, however, something stopped her ascension, and Vegeta looked up in surprise. Her power level seemed already raised to its maximum, still he felt her potential to go higher. It confused him, and by the look on her face, she wasn't happy with the issue either. Despite her body's sudden denial to allow her to gather more energy, she only smirked at Gohan.

 

“Shall we dance?”

 

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