Though his body had disintegrated long before in the blast that had
torched his homeworld, he still remained.
Alone in the deafening silence of space.
Nowhere was quiet – much too quiet for the spirit of the defeated
warrior. Bardock had no form, no identity. Nothing, but a simple translucent
image of his live body – his olive complexion now as pale as white silk, the
faded scar on his cheek contrasting like velvet red blood on an angel's skin.
Only his dark eyes remained their true color – dark, distant. Obsolete.
Time was gaining on him, and he had already found the child he had
left behind in the land of the living. Now the only remaining task was to try
and speak to him. Pools of black cast themselves down to peer at the future
vengence of Vejiitasei; poured into the form of a mere baby.
Contempt blazed in the black eyes of the child's father. This boy
had a life infront of him, and Bardock had nothing now.
He opened his mouth to speak, hearing nothing of his own voice but
whispers from a shouting throat.
Kakarotto…follow my lead! Destroy Furiiza! Take vengence
for the Saiyajin and the Planet Vejiitasei!
Bardock
suddenly found no words would leave his mouth. There was so much he wanted to
tell the sleeping child; so much would remain silent and untold. A shrill sound
reached the dead Saiyajin's faded sense of hearing.
Kakarotto was
crying. Again.
Kakarotto stop
it!
The
order remained a silent thought, lost with so many others he wanted to share
with his last hope for vengence. The baby continued to sob, and Bardock knew
why. He was probably feeling the same as the drifting warrior above him: alone,
defeated….afraid.
Rarely
had any Saiyajin warrior felt anything that even resembled fear. But when he
had first looked into the eyes of death – cruel, bloodless eyes – he had found
himself frozen in terror. The next concious thoughts had been his last:
It's
over.
There
is no more hope or mercy to be shown to the Saiyajin. We are defeated –
His
burning body then shuddered, and the final vision came. Then Bardock smiled.
Now, of
course, he cursed the smile with all his heart and soul – what was left of it.
Bardock was briefly thrown back into the face of death again, the eyes of death
staring him down once more. They were familiar eyes – as if he had seen them a
thousand times before…
An icy
feeling blew past his translucent form, sending a chill up his non-existing
spine. He had seen them before. Many times. They were the same eyes that
peered down at hundreds of innocent, defensless beings and destroyed them
without a second thought. The same eyes that looked back at him from the
crimson pools that reflected them.
The
eyes of death had been his own.
Now the
Saiyajin's eyes were full of pain, shame and disgrace. He had lived the life of
a true Saiyajin, alright. A pointless journy of death, destruction, mass
murder.
Despite
his pride he now loathed, Bardock silently prayed his son would not be in his
father's image. That his son would live the life of a warrior; with strength,
pride and honor.
Hell
awaited him. His surroundings began to fade into into black as his soul
whispered softly, slowely downward to Hell.
The
darkness consumed the scene; the pod, the stars, his son. As he drifted
downward into the afterlife, something caught his eye, glinting from above. In
the surrounding darkness there was a light.
A light
of hope.
His
son, Kakarotto.