Disclaimer: Boy, it's been far too long since I've had to write a disclaimer for this story! Who would have thought that I'd ever be happy while proclaiming that I do not own DBZ?

The Burden of Hope

CHAPTER TWELVE: Sensei and Student; Trunks Takes to the Air

Gohan tightened the belt of his gi, looking down at himself and feeling a little strange; the gi was an exact replica of the one his father had always worn: a bright orange garment on top of a dark blue shirt. In fact, it probably was one of his father's, since it bore the sigil of Kaiou-sama; Gohan's mother had likely cut the arms and legs short to make it fit him---he'd known that she wouldn't allow him to remain in the ragged clothes in which he'd come home. Where she'd been able to find boots in his size, though, was beyond him.

Sighing heavily, he ran a hand through his hair and exited his room. He found his mother and Trunks in the kitchen, the former attempting to wipe the latter's mouth with a napkin; Trunks tried to struggle away from Chichi's fussing, but eventually gave up and let her finish. Finally free of her task, Chichi looked up.

"Oh, Gohan-chan," she said softly, with a smile that was at once proud, sad, and wistful. "You look so much like your father in those clothes."

Gohan bowed his head uncomfortably, folding his hands behind his back and sliding one foot back and forth along the floor. "Um… well… I…"

"Gohan-san, come on!" Trunks urged, insistently pulling on the older boy's arm. "I wanna fly! I wanna fly so I can go home and see Mama!"

Smiling slightly, Gohan let the toddler drag him out the front door and into the clearing. Icarus awaited them there---as Chichi still refused to allow him in the house---screeching and flapping his stubby wings gleefully at their approach. Trunks trotted up to him and patted him on the head---he'd taken quite a liking to the little dragon.

"Let's go, Trunks," Gohan said, waving his hand in a gesture to follow him. "You too, Icarus. Come on." He took off at a slow jog, taking a path through open areas rather than the woods whenever possible so as to ensure that his two companions could keep pace.

"Gohan-san?" Trunks panted lightly. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see in a few minutes."

Gradually, trees gave way to shrubs, and the shrubs in turn gave way to grass, which waved gently in the soft breeze. Gohan came to a stop near a fast flowing river---the same one in which he'd always fished with his father---and waited for Trunks and Icarus to catch up. He couldn't say exactly what had compelled him to come to this place, since there was a perfectly good field right behind the house, but it had somehow felt fitting; he had decided to start listening to his feelings again.

Trunks stumbled to a halt beside him, swiping a stray strand of lavender hair out of his eyes with a small hand; Icarus circled to a landing, evidently having decided that flying was the best way to keep pace. Suddenly a little nervous, Gohan looked down at his… pupil. How exactly was he supposed to go about this?

"Uh… well, I guess we should get started…" he began uncertainly, scratching his head as he tried to think of where that starting point may be.

"Hai!" Trunks responded excitedly. "So what do I do first? What? What?"

Gohan raised his hands defensively. "Whoa, whoa! Calm down, Trunks. Just give me a minute; I've… never taught anyone before."

The toddler cocked his head. "How did you learn?"

"Um…" Gohan started, and bit his lip as he remembered. All of the training he'd experienced under Piccolo-san had been quite harsh, and the flight training had been no exception; Piccolo-san had taken him high into the air and, without any warning, dropped him. Naturally, Gohan had been so terrified that he'd been able to do nothing except scream and slam into the ground. He'd suffered more than a few bruises---and nearly some broken bones---before he'd finally been able to catch himself with his ki. "…I don't think we'll try that just yet. Maybe we ought to start at the beginning. Sit down."

Trunks looked as though he were about to protest, but Gohan gave him a sharp look, causing him to fall silent and obey. Gohan sat across from him, hands upturned in his lap; here went nothing.

"Before you can get into the air," he explained as Trunks watched him intently, "you need to be able to control your ki. So we'll start with that first. I'll go slow; watch carefully." He reached within himself, slowly pulling his ki into his hands and channelling it into a small, flickering ball of blue light that floated just above them.

Wide eyes betraying Trunks' fascination, the toddler tentatively reached out an index finger and lightly touched the ki-ball. "It's warm," he said softly, a smile stretching his lips. "How do I do it?"

"Well, sit back and turn your hands up," Gohan ordered, forcing himself to refrain from smiling at the toddler's eagerness; Trunks quickly complied. "Now concentrate on the centre of your body---that'd be your stomach---and try to find the warm spot."

Trunks closed his eyes and frowned in concentration. After a moment or so, he sighed in frustration. "Gohan-san, I don't feel anything!"

"And you give up too quickly," Gohan snapped, silently cursing the child's sort attention span. Such a thing was common among four-year-olds, he was sure---common and annoying. Had he himself been so irritating to Piccolo-san all those years ago? If he had been, it was truly a miracle that the short-tempered Namekseijin had ever put up with him. "Keep trying; it takes more than a minute to find it for the first time."

"How long did it take you?"

Gohan rolled his eyes. "Look, do you want to hear my life story or do you want to learn how to fly? Be quiet and concentrate."

Trunks' face scrunched as he tried to focus; his frown deepened, but he did not stop this time. "It's in the middle, right?"

"Hai. Just keep searching around there and you should be able to find it."

Gohan watched the toddler silently; he didn't think that it would take all that long for Trunks to find his ki. After all, he had someone to help him along, to guide him on the path to his power. Gohan hadn't; Piccolo-san had simply abandoned him in the wilderness and told him to figure it out for himself. For the first couple of months, he'd been far more concerned with merely staying alive than finding his ki; despite the fact that his family lived in a house in the woods, Gohan had been extremely sheltered and had had little idea as to how to survive on his own. He'd lived on a few tricks that his father had taught him---on the rare occasions when they'd been able to get out of the house for a while---until he'd developed some self-sufficiency.

Once Gohan had become somewhat comfortable surviving in the wilderness, he'd turned some of his attention to trying to draw out his power. In actuality, the power had come out often during those first couple of desperate months on his own, but those instances had been instinctive, his ki brought to the surface by fear; he'd had no conscious control of his ki-flares and had little memory of them afterward. Once he'd actually tried to bring out his ki, the most difficult part had been figuring out where it was; learning how to use it afterward had been rather easy, though he'd generally limited his ki use to mundane tasks such as starting fires.

"Ack!" Something cold and slippery slapped into Gohan's face and slid into his lap, interrupting his thoughts. Looking down, he saw a fat fish flopping weakly in his lap. An eager screech drew his attention to Icarus, who expectantly looked from him to the fish. "Um… thanks, Icarus, but I'm not hungry," he said, picking the creature up by its tail.

Trunks growled in frustration. "I almost had it! I coulda got it if you didn't start making noise!"

Gohan turned toward the toddler, who wore an extremely annoyed frown and had placed his tiny hands on his hips. For a moment, the older boy was reminded of Bulma; she'd often given him---and everyone, actually---glares like that. "Gomen nasai, Trunks. Hold on a second." He dangled the fish in front of Icarus; the little dragon screeched excitedly and sat back on his haunches. "You want to have this, boy? Then go fetch!" He tossed the fish into the near distance, Icarus taking off after it with a speed Gohan would not have credited to him. "All right, Trunks; you can get back to it now."

Huffily, the child turned his palms upward again and squeezed his eyes shut as he concentrated. Several minutes passed in silence before Trunks said, his voice low with excitement, "Gohan-san, I found it! I found it!"

Gohan allowed himself to smirk, though he refrained from praising Trunks; the toddler had made some progress, but congratulating him would have been premature. "Now try to pull it into your hands, but don't force it too much, or it won't come." He watched as his pupil's hands began to quiver with the effort; the child's whole body tensed. "Trunks, relax a little; you're forcing it too much."

"This is too hard!" Trunks whined, folding his arms across his chest and pouting.

His patience wearing thin, Gohan scowled at him. "Did I say that this was going to be easy? No; I didn't. If you really want to learn how to fly, you're going to have to work at it, but if you don't, that's fine. Just don't ask me to teach you anything again, because if you quit this, I won't do it. There's no way you'll ever learn anything if you always give up like this."

Trunks' lower lip trembled. "But Gohan-san…"

"I mean it, Trunks. If you're not willing to learn, then I'm not willing to teach." Gohan kept his voice harsh, and looked away contemptuously, masking the fact that he was a little disturbed that he'd brought the toddler close to tears. He'd meant what he said, though; he couldn't very well be an effective teacher if he had a disinclined student.

When Trunks said nothing in response, Gohan glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, and smiled slightly at the sight; the little boy was once more trying to summon his ki, drawing deep, calming breaths every time his body tensed. It seemed that there was hope for the kid, after all.

Gohan opened his senses to the toddler's progress, and his smile broadened. He's close. Maybe I'm not such a bad sensei, after all.

An aura of pale yellow light alternately glowed and faded around Trunks' hands; the child took another steadying breath. Another glow, but this time the light remained. Slowly, the glow coalesced into a tiny ball floating just above the toddler's upturned palms. Trunks opened his eyes, grinning widely. "Gohan-san! Gohan-san, look! I did it!"

In the single second it took for Gohan to turn his full attention to the toddler, the ki ball winked out of existence; Trunks looked down at his hands as though they had betrayed him. "I really did have it, Gohan-san," he said forlornly, seemingly ashamed.

"I know you did, Trunks," Gohan responded reassuringly. There was no harm in praising the child, now; besides, Gohan wanted to dull the pain that his last words had caused. "I could feel it. That's why I didn't want you to give up; I knew you could do it if you really tried."

Trunks stared at him silently, his blue eyes wide, as though he could not believe the gentleness in Gohan's voice. While the older boy had intended his earlier reprimand to be harsh, he hadn't meant for it to be so harsh that it caused the child a certain amount of fear of him. Gohan, while kind by nature, had been trained very severely, and therefore had no idea of any other way to teach; still, he was trying to temper himself a little, for Trunks' sake. Severity was effective, though, so it couldn't be all bad; he just had to work out some way to balance the two conflicting styles.

Gohan chuckled to himself; he was starting to think as though this wouldn't be the only thing that he'd teach Trunks. That was certainly getting ahead of himself. Beyond flying, what could he teach the kid, anyway? Fighting? No, he wouldn't do that; he hadn't saved Trunks twice in the span of a few days for him to get killed in a battle against the androids. Trunks was too young, anyway. While Gohan hadn't really been much older than Trunks when he'd begun combat training, the thought of a four-year-old fighting was unsettling. Being in battle at such a young age had been an incredible torment to Gohan, and he did not want to expose his pupil to the same thing.

"What was so funny?"

"Hm?" Gohan pulled himself from his thoughts to see Trunks regarding him curiously. He shook his head. "Nothing. Nevermind."

Trunks blinked uncertainly, but shrugged his shoulders after a few seconds, and grinned. "So, now what? Do I get to fly?"

"One step at a time, Trunks," Gohan replied, shaking his head again. "You've managed to pull out your ki once, but it took a lot of effort. You've got to get so good at it that you don't have to try very hard to do it."

"So that means I gotta practice." Trunks' expression was such a perfect blend of seriousness and determination that Gohan almost laughed. "But what are you gonna do while I'm practicing, Gohan-san? You're not just gonna sit and watch, are you? I think that would be real boring."

"Well…" Gohan began, blinking in confusion. What was he going to do? He couldn't just sit and stare at the kid all day… Glancing at the river, he noticed Icarus on the opposite bank, splashing at the rushing waters in an apparent attempt to catch another fish. Gohan looked back at Trunks for a moment, then at Icarus again, and came to a decision. "Hey, Icarus!" he called; the little dragon paused in his fishing to look at him, head curiously cocked to one side. "C'mere, boy!"

Icarus casually flew across the river and landed next to Gohan, rubbing his face up against him and screeching softly. Gohan acknowledged him with a few pats on the head before speaking. "I want you to keep an eye on Trunks, all right? Don't let him wander off, but don't bother him, either; he's training."

"Why does he have to watch me?" Trunks asked in a puzzled voice. "Aren't you staying here?"

"I'm staying close, but I won't be able to see you. And no," Gohan said, raising his hand to silence Trunks when the child opened his mouth, "you can't come with me. Stay here and practice."

When it became clear that Trunks was not going to protest, Gohan rose to his feet and lightly jumped into the air, flying a short distance over the canopy of the forest until he reached a rocky plain. He landed in the midst of this plain, surveying the area with his eyes. Here and there, piles of immense boulders dotted the landscape, perfect accompaniment to the tall stone spires that had been carved by the wind into seemingly impossible shapes. Small fissures disrupted the smoothness of the ground, perhaps the result of several earthquakes in the distant past. Yes, this place would do; if Trunks were going to train, Gohan figured that he may as well do so, too.

Raising his ki somewhat, he lifted himself to the sky, and began; he let loose against the empty air in a near-invisible flurry of punches and kicks, sparring with an imaginary opponent. The wind rushed over his body in cool sheets whenever he spun in a roundhouse, or a backhand, and he smiled at the feel of it. He'd always loved the motion involved in combat; it held a hidden beauty, a sleek elegance that made it appear deceptively unthreatening. Yes, he'd always loved the motion… it was the actual act of fighting with which he'd always had a problem. From the battle against the Saiyajins, Gohan had learned that fighting lead to one thing: death. Yamucha, Chaozu, Tenshinhan, Piccolo-san… they'd all been killed in that battle. Dende, Vegeta, and Kurilin had lost their lives against Frieza. And then there were the androids, who had murdered everyone…

Abruptly, Gohan launched himself downward on an angle, foot first, like a javelin; a spire of fragile rock crumbled easily under the force of the blow. He shot forward, blasting through a pile of boulders without even blinking. Another mound, and then another shattered against his fist. Halting in midair and thrusting his palms outward, he fired a searing ki-bolt at the stone column that towered in front of him, cutting it clean in half. Calmly, he watched the top section descend rapidly toward him. When it was almost upon him, he flared his ki; the rock vapourized instantaneously on contact with his aura.

The earth slowly calmed itself after his onslaught, the ground ceasing to shake and the last bits of dust and debris settling upon it. Wiping his brow with the back of a fist---though he hadn't broken that much of a sweat---Gohan slowly drifted to a landing. So this was what he would be doing until Trunks was ready to try flying. It felt odd, training again; he hadn't done it in years, and he had never done it alone. He'd always had a sparring partner---sometimes his father, but usually Piccolo-san. He realized suddenly that he missed that, but forced himself to be rational. He didn't have either of them, anymore, and that was simply the reality of the situation. No use in being emotional about it.

Raising his ki once more, Gohan leapt into the air to continue his training.

"Are you sure that you're ready for this?"

Trunks frowned in annoyance. "I told you all ready: yes! See?" He stretched his hands out in front of him, and pulled his ki from his stomach into his palms, creating a small ball of yellow light, and all without trying very hard; he'd practiced for almost two whole days, and was very proud of himself for having gotten so good at controlling his ki. But Gohan-san, for some reason that Trunks could not understand, didn't seem to think that he'd be able to fly.

He and Gohan-san, along with Icarus, were standing by the river where Trunks had spent the past two days training. For most of that time, Gohan-san had been off somewhere else, and Trunks didn't know where he went or what he did there; he'd asked him about it several times when they'd gone back to Chichi-obasan's house for food or bedtime, but Gohan-san had just said that it wasn't important.

Gohan-san sighed. "All right, Trunks. If you're really that sure…"

"Of course I---hey!" Trunks wriggled uselessly as Gohan-san grabbed him by the back of his collar and jumped into the air. "Gohan-san, what are you doing?" he shrieked, in a complete state of panic.

The ground grew further and further away; the river looked like nothing more than a long blue line, and even the trees started to blend together into a dark green mass. For a minute, Trunks wondered fearfully if Gohan-san was ever going to stop going up, but let out a heavy sigh of relief when he did do so a few seconds later. Still, it looked as though they were awfully high up…

"G… Gohan-san?" he asked timidly, his voice small.

"You did insist that you were ready," Gohan-san responded. "You'd better hope that's true."

And then he let go.

Trunks wasn't sure what was falling faster---his whole body, or just his stomach. He had little time to spare wondering why Gohan-san had dropped him, as he was currently distracted by the sight of the ground rushing to meet him. With a terrified whimper, he squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for impact…

The impact came, but it came against something softer than the ground, and something warmer, too. Cautiously opening his eyes, Trunks saw two long, slightly backward-curved horns, and, in the corners of his vision, small wings flapping. He panted with relief, and patted the dragon's back. "Good Icarus," he breathed. "Good dragon."

Icarus circled to a landing beside the river, and Trunks slid off his back, still breathing shallowly. Why had Gohan-san done that? Trunks couldn't fly yet, so he would have hit the ground and hurt himself for sure if Icarus hadn't caught him; he couldn't understand why Gohan-san would do something to hurt him. He was pretty sure that Gohan-san liked him, but sometimes he said things that were mean---like when he was first trying to bring out his ki. This was the first time that he'd ever done anything mean, though.

Gohan-san drifted to the ground, and Trunks crouched behind Icarus for protection; it felt wrong to hide from him, but Gohan-san looked sort of upset, so hiding seemed like the best thing to do. Nonetheless, he peeked around the dragon, just to make sure he knew what was happening.

"Trunks, come here," Gohan-san ordered.

Trunks shook his head. "No. You dropped me from way up there, and I coulda got hurt real bad. You tried to hurt me!"

Gohan-san's eyes got wide, and his face turned white. To Trunks' surprise, he started blinking, almost as though he were trying not to cry. "Trunks…" he began, so softly that Trunks could barely hear him. He swallowed before he went on. "Come here, Trunks. Please. Just come over here."

Though he didn't quite know what it was, something in Gohan-san's voice made Trunks obey. Maybe it was the fact that Gohan-san almost sounded like he was sorry, or maybe it was that he had said "please"---Trunks had never heard him say that before. Whatever the reason, Trunks now stood in front of him, looking up at him in confusion; he didn't look upset anymore, but there still seemed to be something…

"Look," he started. "I wasn't trying to hurt you; remember, I asked you a lot of times if you were really ready to learn how to fly, and you kept insisting that you were. This is the quickest way I thought I could get you flying."

So that's why he kept asking me… He knew I could get hurt, and he didn't like that, Trunks realized suddenly. And in the same instant that realization struck him, so did a question. "Did you get taught that way?"

For some reason, Gohan-san smiled a little with one side of his mouth. "Hai, Trunks; this is exactly how Piccolo-san taught me."

Trunks lowered his head, considering this answer. He remembered his mother telling him a little bit about all of her friends that the bad robots had gotten when he was still a baby. Piccolo hadn't really been a friend of hers, but Trunks recalled that his mother said that he'd been best friends with Gohan-san, almost like a second papa. If Gohan-san could be best friends with Piccolo even though he'd done something mean to him, then maybe Trunks could forgive Gohan-san for doing something mean to him, too.

He lifted his chin proudly. "Let's try again, Gohan-san. I promise that I'm ready this time."

Gohan-san looked at him funnily for a minute before grabbing him by the back of his collar again and jumping into the sky, stopping at the same height as last time. "You know that I'm not going to catch you. And I won't let Icarus do it any more, either. If you don't get yourself to float, you will hit the ground."

Swallowing, Trunks looked at the forest below, trying to convince himself that it really wasn't as far down as it seemed---and not having very much success. "It'll really hurt if I hit the ground, won't it?"

"Hai, Trunks, it will."

Nervously, he licked his dry lips; part of him had really been hoping for a more encouraging answer. "I just have to make sure I don't hit it, then."

This time, he was a little more prepared for when Gohan-san dropped him---not that that made it any less scary. He tried to concentrate and bring out his ki, but his fear was still too much of a distraction; the power wouldn't come.

With a grunt of pain, Trunks slammed into the ground. He gritted his teeth, feeling a dull ache throb throughout his whole body, and lay still, his fingers twitching every few seconds. Something rough and wet moved across his face, and he assumed that it must be Icarus' tongue. Slowly, he pushed himself onto his elbows, then onto his knees. Still in pain, he looked up to see Gohan-san staring down at him, not seeming upset, but not seeming happy, either.

Unsteadily, Trunks climbed to his feet, trying to ignore all the aches in his body; hitting the ground hadn't really hurt quite as much as he thought it would have---or so he was telling himself at the moment. He brushed dirt and grass off his clothes, watching as Icarus leapt into the air and flew around in circles.

Trunks, standing rigidly with his fists at his sides, frowned in irritation as he watched the dragon flying as though he were king of the whole forest. "Show-off!" he shouted indignantly at the creature. Behind him, he heard Gohan-san laugh; turning, he fixed a furious glare upon the older boy. "It's not funny! I wanna try it again!"

It took a minute for Gohan-san to stop laughing, but when he did, he lifted Trunks into the sky once more. Unlike the last two times, Trunks was not afraid---he was too angry. He'd show Icarus that he wasn't the only one who could fly besides Gohan-san.

When he felt Gohan-san release him, he didn't worry about the sensation of falling, or about how much it would hurt to hit the ground again. Instead, he concentrated on his ki, pulling it out and trying to put it between himself and the ground---

He stopped suddenly, just barely above the forest floor; blades of grass tickled his face. Trunks was so astonished that he forgot to keep controlling his ki, and lightly flopped to the earth. Too amazed to move, he lay still for a minute.

I did it! he thought, his mental voice full of awe. It was just for a second, but I did it! I was really floating!

Trunks clambered to his feet in pure excitement. So that was how to fly---he just had to put his ki underneath him. Putting his theory into practice, he pushed all his ki down into his feet, and against the ground; he rose a few inches into the air. Trunks giggled in delight, and pushed harder, floating upward until he was eye to eye with Gohan-san.

"Gohan-san, look! I can fly!" he crowed. He lost control of his ki for a second, but quickly recovered, all without the grin ever fading from his face.

Gohan-san folded his arms across his chest as though he were annoyed, but Trunks could see him smiling. "Well, of course you can. I told you that this method was fast, didn't I?"

Trunks nodded enthusiastically. "What next?"

"Next, we work on the harder moves."

Chichi-obasan hugged Gohan-san tightly, but Trunks thought that Gohan-san looked sort of uncomfortable with it, and saw that he didn't hug her back. Trunks really wasn't sure why that was; after all, he was going to hug his mother when he got home. There wasn't anything wrong with it. Still, Gohan-san was a little strange sometimes, and Trunks decided that this must be one of those times.

"Now you two be careful out there," Chichi-obasan said, pulling away from Gohan-san and looking kind of worried. "I tried calling Bulma every day for the last four days and haven't been able to get through. The city is probably still in bad shape; it could be dangerous."

"Kaasan, we'll be fine," Gohan-san said soothingly. "Don't worry." He turned to look down at Trunks. "Let's go, Trunks"

Trunks followed Gohan-san into the air above the field in front of the house, and waved down at Chichi-obasan, Ox King, and Icarus. "Bye!"

Ox King waved his huge hands. "Goodbye, Trunks! Goodbye, Gohan! Be sure to tell Bulma we said 'hi'!"

Trunks flew along just behind Gohan-san, revelling in the feeling of being in the sky, and savouring the sensation of the cool wind rushing through his hair; he'd only been flying for a couple of days, but he all ready thought it was the single most exciting thing that he had ever done in his life. But ,as thrilling as flight was, it wasn't the only reason that he was so happy.

"Here I come, Mama," he whispered, a broad grin on his face. "I'm coming home."