Home.

That's what he called it. That word, that unknown entity so unfamiliar to my schema and the last eighteen years of my life...

But that was our destiny. That was where we were to go.

Kami, how little we knew of the difficulties that lie ahead of us.

The aftermath of all the chaos and destruction lay before her, the reins of tragedy coiling themselves around her strained heart as it resigned into a curdling scream. She released every tension of the abuse and the vengeance, the pain and the suffering, all in that weeping wail of resignation. Finally, she was free from the continued anguish and yet enslaved by the remaining scars all at once.

Goten stood and watched, frozen in a numbed shock. He probably would have reacted more noticeable if he hadn't just killed two people who he had once loved and cherished. He swallowed his wavering emotions that were beginning to bind him and made his way to the now sobbing Bra. Her blue streaks were wet from the newly pouring rain, as if even nature knew they both needed a good cleansing from all of this.

The trees swayed to the sudden, abrupt force of the turbulent wave of wind that accompanied the Earth's purging of raindrops and precipitation, as if this tremendous amount of weather had been building for years, even decades. The howling of the blowing currents was an eerily haunting sound effect as they proceeded to lift inconspicuous leaves away from their grounded home. Innocence swept up in a storm of destruction with only debris left behind to be not only managed, but dealt with.

Bra was able to lower her emotional outbreak to a minimum of silent whimpering and sniffles as Goten cradled her slack body in his aching arms. It seemed everything hurt after that one chilling night. Thankfully, home was not far and the flashbacks were even farther from Goten's clouded, fatigued mind. All he wanted was to sleep, to guard Bra's weak composure with his own, even if it truly amounted to nothing. All he wanted was to be the one to be there for her. That was all.

Nothing.

Bra remembered nothing. Everything was so numb, so shaken, and so vulnerable that even the slightest reminder of the climactic events from the time before would have reduced her to nothing. She felt nothing. Life was nothing. There was just nothing left anymore.

She thought she heard faint voices as she was carried into a house that she no longer recognized. Her sullen, empty eyes wandered but saw faces she could not name. She turned away from those faces, hiding her face into Goten's shoulder like a shy infant meeting a stranger. Those faces were just too concerned, too much in shock, especially as Goten revealed bluntly who was dead, and who was alive.

She did not feel alive.

All she felt was being laid down on a bed, her wet, mud-sodden clothes being peeled off of her aching body as they were replaced by a cotton nightgown. She looked blankly ahead into the darkness of the wall, the blue streaks showering through the windows indicating that morning was near. She shook her head so slowly that Goten didn't notice; she did not WANT another morning to come. She did not have wants. She simply existed, existing and ceasing to exist all at once.

An intake of air, patience, and courage before, "Bra."

She blinked. He took it as a response with some strange sort of gratitude.

"I love you."

Nothing. Nothing from her, inside of her, or within her.

He left after a moment of still air had been the only force in the room, shutting the door ever so softly.

"How is she?" Bulma's first, demanding question. Goten sighed, tired and dull.

"She's ...," He looked away to the floor, feeling shame and regret wash through him before his revelation, "Catatonic."

Bulma gasped slightly before looking down. Everyone was still. 18 piped up from the corner of the room.

"Not surprising. She's been through hell," Came her scoffing remark. Bulma sent her a glare.

"Look, missy. I happen to know what my daughter has been through, thank you very much-"

"You sure about that?"

Bulma recanted, "Well yeah, I couldn't help but be revealed to last night that my own daughter was moles-"

She stopped, sobs instantly wracking her body at the mere idea of her tiny, five-year-old version of herself being so victimized so young. And by someone trusted, even! But isn't that the way these things usually happen...?

Her thoughts were interrupted by Goten's rescue from her awkward emotional lapse.

"Well anyway, she is okay. I checked for injuries. A couple scrapes and bruises, but she will be fine. She is a warrior, just like her father. I have no doubt she'll come out of this-"

"Heh... Who are you trying to fool, boy? You may be a son of Kakarott, but you're only the second whelp. The only thing you've accomplished is an attempt to kiss my ass right now."

Bulma's teary face swung to her husband, disbelief written on her face at his unkind words,"Are you serious, Vegeta? You really think he has done nothing for our daughter? She wouldn't even be in that room if it wasn't for him!"

"She has begun the process of what us soldiers- TRUE warriors- call, 'cocooning'. She is internalizing everything to where she is numb and in shock, and eventually the trauma will arise... And then how safe do you think we will all be? You think this is OVER? Just because the other one of our fucked-up offspring is dead, that the threat is gone? Well THINK AGAIN, woman! And this time, you won't have your precious Kakarrot to save you... NOR MYSELF!"

With that, Vegeta stormed out, a grief-stricken Bulma frozen in her stance. She wouldn't chase him, not anymore. He had been gracious enough to stay and raise his two children, let alone stick around as long as he did to deal with this for this long.

"No," Goten immediately interrupted her thoughts, putting a hand on her shoulder,"They are his children, which makes him responsible. Not you."

"I need to sleep," A weepy Bulma announced, moving away from his hand and to her bedroom.

"Yeah, this is getting uneventful now...," said 18, turning back to add, "Don't lose hope in her, even if it does get ugly like Vegeta said. You stuck out this long, you may as well work some more for the prize."

Goten's jaws clenched at the thought of more hardship. He wasn't in pursuit of Bra, but he was in the pursuit for her happiness and the safety of the Earth. Maybe his father was here no longer, but his older brother was dead and he was the only one left after Vegeta who gave a shit anymore. However, Bra's happiness needed to be in sync with everyone's safety... Or else, he would have no choice but to-

No. Never.

He couldn't.

He shook his head to find a bed to lay it on, seeing shapes and colours all around him in the hallucinatory state of sleep deprivation. His thoughts turned to Bra, but after her lack of response to his proclamation, he decided to leave her alone for now.

That was a mistake.

She had drifted to a lifeless sleep, a post-war zombie in a cotton nightgown with very shallow breathing whose chest barely moved a centimeter during. As tired and sullen as she felt, it was purely physical. No emotion existed within her psyche, no complex was controlling any thoughts, as there were no thoughts to be controlled. No ideas, no creativity. Basically, she had zero personality and memory of any life she may have had before the screaming in the rain. She had been put to sleep by her own soul, and now her soul was in its own coma as well.

She was not Bra, with all of the damage and desire for revenge, any longer. She was asleep.

But dreams always occur in sleep. Even if the hippocampus is not intact enough to facilitate memory of the dreams themselves, they still occur. Perhaps her defense mechanism of wiping out her memory storage really was in full gear, because despite her being unaware of dreaming, the nightmares that haunted her in her ghostly comatose state formed inside of her a body temperature of up to 150 degrees.

While any human would have internally combusted, or practically melted to death, her Saiyan genes prevented this and externalized it instead, setting the entire bedroom on fire.

Ahhhh yeah. A sequel. A lot's happened to me and I've been busy with work and living life in my own world that I totally forgot about this one. Alas..

She's baaaack... :)

And ready to rumble! Lots in store for this one, I foresee. I've missed my little pistol, Bra. I hope you guys have, too. Please review, let me know what you think. I must warn you, as an ode to my over-achieving nature of being artistic, I am NOT reviewing my long-ago completed prequel to this. So if there are inaccuracies, please try to ignore them unless they absolutely interrupt your flow of understanding. There is a reason of my doing this, I promise.

Just like in any painting or work of art, the spontaneity is always planned. :)

Review to read more soon!

~Jckash03