Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Unexplainables Explained ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter 5

Blue eyes opened to view a metallic ceiling above her that was quite familiar; now. She sat up suddenly; then clutched her head as a bout of dizziness hit her. She slowly lowered her hand as she realized she was not alone in the room.

"You're awake."

The simple statement was spoken in a voice that was and was not familiar. It was not in that it was supposed to sound different. She looked into red eyes and narrowed her own. "Take it off."

White hair was flung around a black shoulder as he shook his head. "It's permanent if I do that and she's waiting outside the room for you to awaken. She doesn't remember."

Bulma gritted her teeth and threw the covers from her form, rising to stalk toward the man with all the anger she felt justified for. "I can't believe you." The words were a hiss and she swore that he flinched slightly from them. "You could've wished to be normal, come back to Earth. Instead you wish for us to-" She choked on the last words, face red with impotent rage.

Again he shook his head, remaining in the seat that had been placed near her bed and looking up at her with a straight face. "No. I couldn't have. This is normal. This is who I am."

"It is not who you are, Vegeta! You are a Saiyan! You are their Prince! Is this how you honor their memory, by-"

Her words were abruptly cut off as Vegeta rose, seeming to tower over her despite his short height. His red eyes flashed with fire. "I know what I am! But that is not who I am, woman! You of all people should know the difference. I could not be both. I cannot be Hitori and Saiyan."

She was silent, probing his eyes for some sign that he was wrong. "Why can't you be both?"

He couldn't meet that gaze for long; that betrayed, accusing gaze that she had somehow mastered, or he had weakened to. "They contradict each other, woman. What is in one is not in the other. What is not in one is in the other. If I had wished to be Saiyan, I would've been incomplete. I would have the memories of Hitori with the mind and body of a Saiyan. I realized that."

There was much left unsaid, but Bulma could remember and fill in most of it. He'd said they were saying things he could almost hear; that they'd had answers. Obviously he'd had questions. She knew what those questions were now, and, thus, knew what the answers were.

"So, that's it? End of the story? That's the answer to everything for you? 'I am Hitori?' You felt the need to search for all that time and that's your stupid answer?" She was spitting the words out by the end, but she didn't care. She was just struggling to contain her tears. Tears and Vegeta led to nothing. After all, when had Vegeta ever cried?

She sucked in a breath when gentle fingers cupped her chin, running up to lightly brush her cheek. "No. That wasn't what I searched for. That wasn't what I found. I was looking for a place, woman. Looking for my place. A Prince with no kingdom. A warrior with no battle. I saw you. You had a place. Friends. Family. A home. A job. I had to know how. I had to know what you'd found that I hadn't."

She breathed finally as his fingers; cold, metallic ones; left her face, leaving a chill trail behind them. "Did you find what you searched for?"

He turned suddenly away from her, walking to the door. "Ayamari is waiting. You have a choice. Go with me to Merrick and meet up with your friends, returning home. Or go with Ayamari. She has agreed to take you home. Your friends will join you after I have bought them and set them free."

Bulma opened her mouth and wondered suddenly what she was going to say; what she could say. It didn't seem that anything she did or said could make a difference. Vegeta had made his choice. But for now, she needed time to think. "How'd you do it?" As Vegeta turned toward her, she waved a hand at his lifelike disguise.

His white eyebrows rose. "Illusion." He let out a bark of laughter that was bitter enough to make Bulma wince. "I took my name from the Saiyan word for illusion; genkaku. The race is quite real. Everything else was true except that I was Naku, a Hoskeki." He tapped the back of his neck with one long, black finger. "A chip was implanted right here. I gave the specifics of what I wanted and even included this disease to match my own."

Bulma's eyes widened, "The shot I gave you! It isn't working as well anymore is it? You-"

"I'm dying, woman. You know it. I can't find a cure. I'm going to Merrick to enter in the gladiator competitions. That is where I'll drop the illusion." His hand touched the doorknob as he looked steadily at her, a signal that the conversation was at an end.

Despite this, Bulma carried on. "So you'll spend your last moments fighting. You're going to die there…." Her voice trailed off and her eyes did so too, glancing around the room, his room. They suddenly locked onto an item and widened. "Come here, Vegeta."

Both white eyebrows rose at the hushed tone and he slowly walked toward her, eyes glancing between her and the gold-framed mirror she stared into. Finally he stood before both her and the mirror and watched as her lips parted slightly, letting out a quiet sigh.

He turned, curious as to what she saw, and saw nothing but himself without the Hitori or Hoskeki qualities. Nothing she could've reacted like that to. He turned; a question on his tongue, to have his face cupped by two hands and drawn toward lips that desperately gripped his own. He felt his eyes flutter shut involuntarily and moved his lips against hers in a fast and furious friction that made them both groan.

Bulma let go of him slowly, although she still held his face. She looked steadily into red eyes that had been black and were now silver. "I'm coming with you to Merrick. I will watch you fight." 'I will watch you die' were the words she did not speak but Vegeta clearly heard.

He jerked back, eyes wide and almost horrified. "No! You will go with Ayamari-"

"The choice is mine to make, Vegeta. Just as the last wish was yours to make. I-"

He stilled as blue eyes scanned his face, sorrowful and full of a fear he didn't understand. Until she finished her sentence. "I love you."

His eyes widened further and he stepped back from her embrace fully, seeming unbalanced and totally unprepared for the three words. He gave her one last wide-eyed look, like a deer before headlights, and turned, walking out the door without looking back.

' ' '

Ayamari slowly opened the door, peeping in. "Um, Bulma?"

Bulma's eyes opened and her head jerked toward the sound. She had fallen asleep in the chair Vegeta had occupied; almost imagining his warmth was still there. He was going to die….

"Yes?"

The brown-eyed girl entered the room almost nervously. "Naku says we're here…at Merrick. He wants me to take you to get your friends…."

Bulma nodded, standing and blinking a bit to clear her eyes. The other woman, uncomfortable with the red and watery state of the blue orbs that peered at her, cleared her throat and glanced away. "Do you want to get anything? I mean, do you have anything to pack or-"

Bulma blinked again and came back to reality, reminding herself that this woman knew nothing of what she had done. Bulma didn't even know if her death had been a good thing or not. It seemed to have been pointless.

"Yeah. It's in my room. I'll go get it and meet you back at your ship."

As Ayamari nodded and turned to go, Bulma stepped forward and grabbed her arm, halting the girl. "You said you searched for the Hitori?"

Ayamari's eyes widened as she stepped back into the room. "Yes. Do you know of them?"

Bulma silently shook her head. "They came to my planet. They died on my planet. Have you ever-loved someone, Ayamari?"

Ayamari's lips thinned, compressing to white lines as her brown eyes slid from the sorrowful ones before her. "Yes…. The Hitori killed him. I wasn't allowed to be with him. He was-below me in class." She shrugged, meeting the blue eyes again. "How did the Hitori die?"

Bulma smiled lightly. "The last Hitori died there of some virus." She looked beyond Ayamari, into the steel-walled corridors. "Where's-Naku?"

Ayamari raised a brow; then smiled in understanding. Of course, the woman was attached to him. That explained most of it, including his stormy silence as he'd passed her in the hall with nothing but instructions to leave her alone.

"I believe he went onto the main deck. At least, he was heading that way. He-didn't say much."

There was a wistful smile on her face as Bulma walked around Ayamari to the door. "That's him alright."

As Ayamari followed Bulma down the corridor after closing the door, the woman again spoke without looking at her. "You think you know something, and then something happens and you don't know anymore."

Ayamari didn't know what to say to that. She wondered briefly what had happened that the woman was so very-well, almost apathetic. She hesitated; then confidently put her hand on the other's arm, stopping her.

Bulma turned; her eyes wide and shining with repressed tears. "Hm?"

Ayamari smiled softly before taking the woman in her arms, not minding in the least as the other cried out all she had obviously been repressing.

It was many minutes afterward before an embarrassed Bulma pulled back from Ayamari, staring at the wet spot on her shoulder resolutely. "I'm sorry. I-"

Ayamari smiled softly and put a finger on the woman's lips. "It's funny. They are dead. And yet I feel no joy for it."

The two women stared at each for a long moment, sharing the experience, then Bulma nodded and started down the corridor again.

' ' '

Vegeta, or Naku as he now went by, sat on the chair in the control room and glared at the window looking out on space. He was like the view outside. Empty and cold and dark.

Wasn't he? What about the pinpricks of light that were suns? The woman would've pointed that out. She would've also pointed out the red and gold swirled planet that peeked just to the left of the screen. A small sphere no bigger than Earth's moon had been that was slowly covering the view of space from the window. His death....

What did it matter? He was dying. His body weakening slowly. It was all pointless.

'Pointless? So her death was pointless? She died to give you a chance to be what you want to be, not what you were forced to be.'

Snarling, he rose and walked to the window, glaring now at the planet with his red eyes. Kakarott didn't know what he spoke of.

'... I certainly wouldn't want to be Hitori...so caught up in riddles I failed to see anything around me.'

He scowled down at the planet. Riddles. Riddles-questions. They were the same and one, foolish Namek. And he had to have questions. It was questions he searched the answers for.

'So, you left behind the most important part of yourself? You gave up your heritage and destiny for answers? You gave up what could've given you those answers in the hopes that they would be handed to you on a silver platter? Vegeta, what you gave up for these answers are the very things that will give them to you. How can you find answers when they are inside of you and you refuse to look?'

Inside him. He was nothing inside. There was nothing inside. The Imperfect One had shown him that. Asked him questions he thought he knew the answers to. And when he was given the solution-Hitori was not the answer he needed. She was right about that at least.

He had given up everything-for nothing. Nothing at all. Then again-

'No. That wasn't what I searched for. That wasn't what I found. I was looking for a place, woman. Looking for my place....'

The planet outside now took up the whole of his horizon, filling up his screen. He gazed at the planet-and wondered how something so very small could succeed in bringing him down.

'Did you find what you searched for?'

He hadn't. He'd found that he had no place. No home, no family. He had nothing. Didn't that therefore mean he was nothing? And why should something-so imperfect as nothing continue to live?

It was why he had killed the Imperfect One. It wasn't for any such noble reason as the fate of Earth or even the universe. It hadn't even been the threat to the woman. It had simply been the imperative of the Hitori, of himself.

He heard the door slide open behind him, a quiet voice speaking to someone, then the door closed and he knew the woman was by herself. "I told you to leave."

"I am leaving. I just-needed money."

He turned his head slightly, watching her warily as she crossed the room toward him. "For?"

She sighed and did that eye roll she'd practiced to perfection on Earth. "To set everyone free of course."

Vegeta opened his mouth only to be forestalled by Bulma's explanation. "I figured it would save you time. What with your quest and all."

This time his brows furrowed. "Quest?"

"To die."

The way she said those words, the lack of inflection and facial expression, told him that she was either being sarcastic or caustic. Some part of him was stung by the thought of the second.

"I see. Yes...that would save me time." He turned back to the window and looked at the planet looming closer. "Is that all?"

"No-it isn't."

He turned around with a raised eyebrow only to violently flinch as her hand connected solidly with the side of his face. He blinked at her, both eyebrows raised, to see her blinking rapidly herself. "You're a real bastard, Vegeta."

With that she turned on her heel, and in the time that it took Vegeta to decide if he should stop her or not, she was gone.

' ' '

Bulma strode through the hallways, Ayamari leading the way to her ship. Her head was bowed-and she was thinking. Vegeta had been a stubborn ass making that wish. Wishing they would all forget him.

Well...two could play at that game. What did it matter how he felt-or didn't feel-for her? He was still her friend, even if he didn't know what that meant.

'Did you find what you searched for?'

He'd never answered her. And now his-sudden need to fight to the death.... It was all adding up. She, however, was not going to let him waste his life like this. She could've pulled a guilt trip on him, told him that because he had wished them to forget him, they'd lost a week's worth of time and had been susceptible to Joso's attack.

It seemed Vegeta had forgotten certain things that had happened between them. Certain places they'd been-things they'd done. There was only one way to reach Vegeta through the Hitori. To reach past the objective part of himself and to where she knew the Saiyan Prince still resided. Only one way-

-and only one Namek who could get her there.

As she entered into the adjoining ship behind Ayamari, Bulma prayed to Kami that Piccolo was still alive. Well-it was kind of useless to pray to Kami if he wasn't.

A/N: O.O OMG! What a huge update I have. I warned you guys.... Well, those of you who actually read my lj. I updated-and it's huge. ^____^ YAH! Kahlan is back to writing. I certainly feel rejuvenated! Now...let's see how fast the next chapter gets out. ^_^: