Holding Hope's Thread
Night.
It shrouds the sky in black, stars punching tiny blue holes in its
endless expanse; beneath this sky, the world sleeps. But here, above it, I do not.
Tonight, it seems, I have not been blessed with the ability to rest.
The sky around me is still filled with the
brightness of day; I've come to notice that, for some unknown reason, night
does not visit Kami's---actually now Dende's---Lookout. Of course, this is not the reason that I am
unable to sleep. I wish it were, though,
because the real reason is feelings of fear and uncertainty.
The Cell Games are tomorrow. It will be the day that the future of this
timeline is decided. Chances for
actually having a future seem nil; Goku-san has plainly admitted that he
is not powerful enough to defeat Cell.
Strangely, though, he is as cheerful as Kaasan always told me he
was. Every time one of us asks him why
this is, he flashes a bright smile, chuckles a bit, and says not to worry. Perhaps I wouldn't if I knew what secret he
was hiding behind his cavalier manner.
Then, perhaps, I wouldn't be suffering this bout of insomnia.
"Ohayo, Trunks-san. I guess you can't sleep either, huh?"
I turn my head in the direction of the
soft, young voice that has just spoken.
Gohan stands there, smiling shyly.
Even in Super Saiyajin form, he appears to be innocent and harmless,
with his wide aquamarine eyes and self-conscious stance; one would never
suspect that he is one of the deadliest creatures alive. A light breeze springs up, billowing his
white, Piccolo-style cape out to one side, but stirring his stiff blond hair
only a bit.
"No," I reply simply. I do not say any more; words have never been
my way, even as a child. They have been
even less my way since Gohan---my Gohan---died.
Silently, Gohan steps forward to stand
beside me at the edge of the lookout, the circular platform that floats high
over Earth. He gazes down upon the
world, his face sombre and his eyes thoughtful. "This is the last night."
He turns his head toward me. "What
do you think is going to happen tomorrow?"
The question shouldn't catch me off guard,
but it does; I guess I'm just not used to him asking me
anything. Such an action is the duty of
a child to an adult, and between my Gohan and I, it had been mine. Here, though, our roles are reversed. After a moment of hesitation, I answer, "I
don't know. Your father seems to have a
plan, but he won't say anything about it to any of us, not even you. Anything could happen; we'll just have to
wait and see."
"Right."
He nods, and then sits, his legs dangling carelessly over the edge. "I guess I shouldn't be so worried; Tousan
always comes through for us, after all.
I'm not like him, though, you know; I'm not… carefree. I can't help wondering that this time… maybe…"
Silence, now; Gohan stares ahead blankly,
swinging his small legs back and forth.
What can I say to him? One would
think that I can offer him a comforting word or two, having received plenty of
them myself during my childhood, but I can't.
Doing so would seem almost… dishonest, I guess. It isn't that I don't believe in hope---I
wouldn't have come back in time if I didn't---but in this case, I see little
reason for it. Things had seemed much
simpler when my only goal had been to find a way to destroy Juunanagou and
Juuhachigou. Then Cell comes along, and
everything changes…
"We knew each other pretty well in your
timeline, didn't we, Trunks?" Gohan's
voice breaks the stillness.
I jump at the question; it is quite
unexpected. "Hai, Gohan, we did."
He pauses again before continuing, his
voice sounding quite hesitant. "Do you
think that you could tell me a bit about… about what I was like?"
"W… well…" I stammer, completely thrown
this time. I can't imagine why he would
ask me this. "… Sure I could. But… but why?"
The way his cape juts out over his
shoulders makes his shrug seem more pronounced. He is still staring ahead, with the same blank expression on his
face. "I don't know. I'm just curious, I guess. I'd kind of like to know what kind of a
person I'd have grown up to be."
Disturbed, I frown a little; his words and
the way he's said them are making one thing utterly and painfully clear: he's contemplating his death. He's just a little kid, and he's
contemplating his death. It isn't
right. Someone his age shouldn't worry
about dying. That's another reason that
I came back in time---so children could think about life instead of death. I've never had that luxury; there wasn't
really life in my timeline, only existence, something that could be ripped away
in less than a second. There was no
joy, no youthful abandon…
"Trunks?" Gohan's soft voice jolts me out
of my musings. He's looking at me now,
wide eyes inquisitive, then slightly guilty; he bows his head a bit. "Gomen nasai. You really don't have to tell me anything if you really don't
want to. I'll understand. It's really all right."
"No!" I say abruptly, and a bit too loudly;
Gohan looks up at me again, clearly startled.
I soften my voice before continuing, "No, it's fine. I was just thinking. Where do you want me to start?"
"Anywhere."
Anywhere.
That doesn't really help, but I don't tell him that. It seems that it's up to me to pick a
starting point---not an easy task at all, since there's so much that can be said. Looking into his eyes, though, a strange
realization suddenly strikes me. "Well,
now that I think about it, you weren't all that different than you are now. Harsher, maybe, especially when we first
met, but not really terribly different."
Gohan's young face wrinkles in
confusion. "What do you mean, 'when we
first met'? I thought you'd known me
your whole life."
I shake my head slowly. "That's not quite true. You see, you'd disappeared after the first
battle with the androids. Everyone
thought you had been killed along with the others. But one day, when I was about four, I got separated from Kaasan
during an attack, and you came out of nowhere to save me from Juuhachigou. You let me tag along with you after that,
but you didn't seem terribly happy about it, at least at first."
Gohan frowns thoughtfully, apparently
considering my words. "I was probably
still upset about the others. I
probably blamed myself for them dying," he says at last. He smiles without humour. "I have a really bad habit of doing that,
you know."
That is certainly true; I've come to notice
that no one is harder on Gohan than Gohan himself. And he's right on another count:
it's an awful habit to have.
"You eventually came around, though, started to get back to the way that
you are now. Still hardened, like I
said, but in my timeline, that kind of thing was kind of unavoidable."
He nods in understanding. "Sounds like a horrible life."
Forcing a slight smile, I try to say
something to cheer him up a bit.
"Things weren't completely messed up all the time, Gohan. There were some good moments. My favourites were probably our races."
"Races?" he asks, obviously confused.
I nod.
"Yeah. After you taught me how
to fly, I constantly challenged you to races.
At first, you'd always say no, but I'd keep on pestering you until you
caved in---and you always caved in, eventually."
It's a relief to see him laugh a little;
the conversation had been getting to be a little too heavy for my liking. I'd grown up under a blanket of emotional
heaviness, so anything that lightens the mood is a welcome---if somewhat
uncomfortable---change for me. It's
surprising though, that I am the one who's doing it. I guess I'm not entirely morbid, after all.
"I bet I let you win a lot," Gohan manages
between chuckles.
"All the time, when I was little. Once I got older, though, and you started
training me seriously…" There---now I've gone and destroyed the mood; Gohan
stops laughing, and turns his head to gaze down upon the Earth again. Silence claims the lookout once more, with
not even a single cricket present to break it.
I'm on the verge of deciding that our conversation is over, when Gohan
speaks up.
"I have another question," he says, softly
and uncertainly. "But you don't have to
answer it if you don't want to. In
fact, you probably won't; it'll probably just make you upset."
"What is it?" I ask before I realize that
I've spoken. I don't know why I said
that, since I have an awful feeling that I know what the question is going to be. I'm not going to want to answer---that much
I can feel… and Gohan's next words confirm that feeling.
"Trunks… how did I die?"
Flinching, I turn away from him to stare at
the sky below; I'd known that he would ask this. But why has he? Why does
he want to hear about his death? Why
does he want to hear about how I woke up alone, searched through a decimated
city in the driving rain, only to find his lifeless body lying half in a puddle
of muddy water? About how I cried as I
vainly tried to revive him, unwilling to believe that he had left me? I should be able to better handle the
memories now; it's been more than three years since it happened. Most of the time, I think I'm over it, but
when I get reminded point-blank…
Gohan puts his small hand on my
shoulder. "Trunks, gomen nasai," he
apologizes guiltily. "I really
shouldn't have asked you that. I… I'll
just go." I hear the soft scuffle of
his feet as he climbs to them, and the swish of his cape as he turns to walk
away.
"You went alone," I deadpan.
He whips his attention toward me. "Nani?"
"You went alone," I repeat, my voice still
flat. "I wanted to come with you, but
you knocked me out. You knew I wasn't
ready to fight them. By the time that I
woke up and went to look for you, you were already dead."
I look to my side to see him sit again,
sympathy plainly written on his face.
For a long time, neither one of us speaks.
"You remember what I said earlier? About me having a bad habit of blaming
myself for things?" he begins, and doesn't wait for an answer before
continuing, "I think you must have picked it up from me."
Surprised, I only blink; it sounds like
he's using what I had always called his "older-brother voice" on me. The effect is strange, to say the least,
when that voice is coming from a small child, who is almost ten years younger
than I am.
"It's not your fault that I died, you
know," Gohan goes on. "You said
yourself that you weren't ready then, so what do you think you could have done
to save me? All that you would have
done if you'd come with me is die at my side.
Then your world would have had no hope.
Even if that hope seemed small, it being there would be a lot better
than nothing."
It amazes me that this Gohan can
speak this way. This one hasn't been
through anything as harsh as living in a world ravaged by the
Jinzouningen. Sure, he's been in some
harrowing situations, but… No; I stop myself.
This Gohan has been through plenty:
the battle with Raditz, the struggle against Otousan and Nappa, the
clash against Frieza… These events
weren't prolonged, like the situation in my timeline, but they gave him a lot
of time to learn about slim hopes.
"It's kind of like the way things are right
now," Gohan says suddenly, an ironic smile touching his lips.
Slightly confused, I ask, "What do you
mean?"
"Well," he explains, "look at the
situation. A terrible evil is out to
destroy the world, and Tousan says that he can't defeat it, but he has a
plan. Nobody but him knows what it is,
so we don't think there's much of a chance of getting through this one." He pauses.
"The chance is there, though, and it's all that we've got to
believe in. It's funny when you realize
that we've always gotten by on that one tiny chance that almost wasn't
there. Maybe it'll happen again; that's
the way it seems to be, with us."
"Maybe," I agree almost silently, though
I'm sure Gohan hears me. Strange, but I
actually do feel a bit better after hearing those words; then again, in my
timeline, Gohan's little speeches always seemed to have that effect on me. It must be a kind of natural talent.
"Looks like we won't be getting any sleep,"
he comments idly, staring downward.
"Hm?"
"It's morning," he clarifies, pointing with
his chin. I follow his gaze to see the
sky below us glow a fiery mixture of red, orange, and yellow. Dawn still looks beautiful, even when seen
from above. I guess we really won't be
sleeping. Destiny will be decided
today.
Will the thin strand of hope break? Or can it stand up to such a powerful evil
as Cell? Like Gohan has said, it has
always been strong enough to sustain us in the past… but it has never faced
anything like this before. Whether it
can hold together or not, though, it's all we've got, and it has always been our
most powerful tool.
May Hope hold true to its legacy.
Author's Notes
1) If anyone is wondering why I don't have the lookout dark at night, I'm
going by what I've seen in the Garlic Jr. Saga. Like or lump the saga, that's where I got it from.
2) If you're curious about the whole when Mirai Gohan met Mirai Trunks
thing that I mentioned, it's a reference to an epic that I have going, called "The
Burden of Hope", so if you want to know more about that, you ought to check it
out. Am I plugging myself shamelessly? Yeah, probably, but… well… I sincerely
believe that it's worth a read. Please forgive
my self-promotion.
