Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Price You Pay ❯ Chapter Eight ( Chapter 8 )

Insert standard disclaimer here.

 

The Price You Pay: Chapter Eight

 

The Saiya-jin Prince's eyes were glowing. He stared at her, probing her with his look. He was considering her in a way he'd never done before. Probably because showing that much interest would mean she was worth his attention, Bulma scoffed. But this look, this look said that she was more than worthy.

 

"Vegeta… wha—?"

 

This kiss, if it could even be called that, was soft, very gentle, barely a brush of lips—nothing like the raw and violent lust she'd seen in his eyes. Then, just as quickly as it happened, it was over. Vegeta's face was above hers. It seemed that in those brief seconds he had somehow managed to roll on top of her, supporting his weight with his forearms. His eyes were closed, a pained expression on his face.

 

"So it's true then…" Vegeta trailed off.

 

Vegeta opened his eyes and stared down at the onna below him. On her lips, he could still sense the traces of the ki energy that had connected between them.

 

"What are you doing? Are you crazy?!" Bulma shrieked when she finally came to her senses. She had no idea what was going on.

 

Immediately, Vegeta removed his body from hers and sat down on his side of the bed, resting his back against the headboard. His legs were folded, his elbows resting on his knees. He lowered his head until it was cradled in his open palms.

 

She was positively charged. Positively charged with his ki energy. And after that short kiss, he was certain he had retained all the negatively charged ki. Every last ounce of it. This was not a good thing. They had created a time bomb.

 

The blank look on Vegeta's face scared Bulma beyond belief. If Vegeta was at a loss for words, then something definitely had to be wrong.

 

I am bonded to her. Bonded. Vegeta, you idiot, why didn't you lock the door?

 

The woman sat up and stared at him, obviously wondering what mental disease was affecting his judgment.

 

Vegeta had never experienced anything like this before. And while on Vegeta-sei he'd never read anything about what such an exchange could do to one's body. It was the first step in a ritual meant to only be performed between Saiya-jins, not scrawny and defenseless Chikyuu-jin.

 

What would she say? Did he even have to tell her? Blasting her was sounding better by the minute.

 

"Onna, I'm going to tell you something now. Something I never thought I'd have to tell anyone, something I never wanted to." He was speaking monotone, but the last part he seemed to add with a bite of bitterness. He felt sick.

 

Bulma widened her eyes. Sweet Jesus, what had she gotten herself into? She shook her head, trying to recall the events of the previous night. She mentally pressed the replay button, reliving the moment she pushed open Vegeta's door and walked out onto the balcony.

 

I am an idiot, she thought with a terrible realization. She'd absorbed his ki. He could have killed her for doing something so stupid. She moved to the head of the bed, situating herself the way Vegeta had, hoping he still wasn't actively contemplating homicide. She glanced at him dodgedly.

 

"There are some aspects of Saiya-jin life of which you may not have been informed." He paused, and looked at her angrily. "When you first met Kakkarot, he was only a child, and therefore wasn't subject to the same physical changes as my body is."

 

Okay, I'll take a history lesson over being flash fried, thought Bulma, allowing herself to relax the slightest. This was the last thing she expected, but she wasn't going to make a scene.

 

How to explain the Khon'daia na to her was beyond him. "For one month, every three years, Vegeta-sei was shut down in preparation for something sacred, a ritual which we call the Khon'daia na. Although 'ritual' is a crude translation. It's more like an involuntary change in Saiya-jin physiology. Classic changes involve the production of greater amounts of adrenaline, more primitive parts of the brain becoming stimulated, and subsequently greater acts of aggression.”

 

Okay...

 

She still didn't see where this was going. But at least it was interesting and educational. She had never experienced anything like that with Goku before. Not even once. Maybe that was one of the reasons, among many, that Goku was so different from any of the other Saiya-jins she'd encountered.

 

"So..." started Bulma after Vegeta was fully finished explaining, "What does the Khon'daia na have to do with the ki ball that I absorbed?” She struggled with the foreign words. “That was just ki energy. I should have a little power surge for the next few days, but I don't see how the two are connected."

 

Vegeta looked at her incredulously, she was more ignorant than he'd thought.

 

"They are linked by the fact that the ki ball you absorbed was not simply ki energy.” He was hostile now, accusatory.

 

"So I absorbed—?"

 

"You absorbed half of the ki energy in my body, along with half of the emotions I was trying to release, harmlessly, out into the air. To prevent myself from becoming more... animalistic during the Khon'daia na, I meditate, concentrating my emotions into tangible spheres. So you see, you didn't just absorb ki. You absorbed my positive energy." Vegeta observed her face silently, waiting for all the information to sink in. “And I retained the negative.”

 

Bulma's facial expression changed as she put two and two together.

 

Oh, no, she thought, the nausea returning.

 

"Wait, so if I have positively charged energy, and you have negatively charged energy," she said, pointing to herself and then to Vegeta, "wouldn't that mean that our energies would try to converge?" She smacked her hands together as if emphasizing her point. It was a crude summary, but it would suffice. Vegeta stared at her.

 

She was already attracted to Vegeta, she thought. The last thing she needed was her body to show him how she felt because of some freaky Saiya-jin voodoo.

 

"Yes, that's exactly what it means,” said Vegeta with crushing finality. "The kiss was an experiment to see if my hypothesis was indeed correct. Your lips tingled, did they not?" he asked matter-of-factly.

 

Bulma's lips still tingled as she touched them mutely with a shaky hand. There wasn't enough air in the room as she fought back a fit of hyperventilation.

 

Vegeta watched Bulma in detached amusement. Finally she was as upset as he was.

 

She looked at him in desperation, her eyes glowing a bright silver with a tint of aqua marine—the color the ki sphere had been. The hue accented the natural color of her eyes.

 

She was terrified.

 

Ha. And I haven't even told her the worst part. Poor thing.

 

Vegeta brushed a stray strand of Bulma's blue hair out of her eyes, then snatched his hand away quickly. Sure, the lock had been bothering him for the past couple of minutes, but the gesture was extraordinarily outside the scope of his usual behavior. He stared at his fingers as if they belonged to someone else entirely.

 

Without warning, Bulma reached out with her own hand and touched Vegeta's cheek. That was it. They had both gone crazy.

 

Vegeta grunted and swatted at her hand. He didn't like where this was going. Attracting energies or not, they were still in control of themselves. They had to be. He wasn't going to let things get out of control. And certainly not because their bodies, at the moment, were chemically drawn to one another.

 

Maybe if he skipped to the part where they were completely damned, he could horrify them out of their bizarre behavior.

 

"Don't get too comfortable, onna. I still haven't told you the worst part." Vegeta hesitated. He could not remember another time in his life when he'd ever been at such a loss. Bulma turned her head slowly, she looked adequately terrified.

 

“You're kidding, there's more?”

 

If you only knew.

 

"The exchange of ki gave you more than an 'energy boost'. Oh, no. We exchanged life energies." He emphasized the words, stressing their importance, then bared his teeth. “Your ignorance, one way another, initiated the first step in a Saiya-jin mating ritual.” He was certain the connotation in his voice was sufficient in expressing his horror and disapproval. “You just created the first bond.” He pointed at her in accusation.

 

"What?!” Bulma jerked away from the Saiya-jin no Ouji that sat far too close to her. “What the hell does that even mean?” She didn't like the pointing. He was the one who didn't lock his door.

 

"You are now permanently bonded to me emotionally, and I to you." Vegeta stared at her. She was on the verge of nuclear meltdown. He'd never seen her this upset.

 

"You have got to be joking." She looked at him, searching for any signs of untruthfulness, but could find none. "But we hate each other!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air.

 

"Apparently, not anymore." The onna seemed to like the idea of the two of them being bonded even less than he did. Weirdly, he was miffed in a peculiar way that she was so opposed to their theoretical union.

 

"There's no way I'm going to permanently attach myself to you because of some old Saya-jin spiritual bullshit. Sure, I'll admit to having a crush on you, but bonded? That's a stretch.”

 

"Onna, I realize that you have no idea what's going on, and that all of this frightens you. But do you see this?" he asked drawing her attention to his eyes. "See the glow in my eyes? That's the glow of someone who has just completed the first step in bonding."

 

"If it's true..."

 

"There's no `if' onna.” He walked to his bathroom and grabbed a small mirror. “Look,” he said with authority as he handed her the mirror. Bulma's eyes reflected silver on the surface of the polished metal. She tossed the mirror onto the bed, wrapping her arms around herself. This couldn't be happening. This could not be happening.

 

“Don't you get it? This can only happen during the Khon'daia na. When you absorbed my ki, you changed everything." The least the woman could do was be mature about it. He hadn't even thought about blasting her, well, at least not in the past few minutes.

 

Bulma was horrified. She was now 'bonded' to a man who hated her. A man who cursed the ground she walked on. Oh, the irony.