Title: The Daughter of a Saiyan: A Father's Right.
Category: Dragonball Z.
Disclaimer: None of the things you recognize belong to me. DBZ and everything involved with it belongs to Akira Toriyama. Anything you don't recognize belongs to me.
Warnings for this story: Use of a swear word, but only one.
A/N: To any of you who think Goku getting this angry is OOC, I suppose in a way you're right. Goku's always been the laid back guy, who never gets mad, but I think that if he had a daughter, he would be more protective of her than he is of his sons, he would be more inclined to make a big deal out of nothing when it comes to her safety and he would be jealous of anyone who could be a potential father figure. Why isn't he jealous of Piccolo? Because Piccolo didn't spend every day with her for seven years and because the bond Piccolo and Chiara share isn't as deep as the one between her and Vegeta.
775 A.D. July the 11th.
The day started like any other day. Chiara had arrived at the Capsule Corporation early in the afternoon to begin her training with her Senpai, eager as she always was to get started. Ignoring Bulma's claims that they didn't need to train every day, Vegeta led Chiara outside, bypassing the gravity chamber.
Chiara swallowed hard, she knew what that meant. While training in the gravity room, they never went all out. The room wasn't as sturdy as it had to be for that, so they had to hold back. When training outside, there were no such restrictions and anything went.
She took a deep breath as they approached the open area they would be training in, not far from the Capsule Corporation. This was going to be some training. Before the training could begin, however, Gohan and Krillin turned up, stating they wanted to watch the training.
Vegeta was annoyed at the arrival of the two, as the runt didn't need any distractions, but Chiara insisted that they stay, saying she would focus as she always did. Vegeta conceded but warned her that he wouldn't hold back so she had better pay attention.
Their training started and Chiara was hard-pressed to keep up with her Senpai. She was powerful and could usually match her Senpai's moves pretty well, but when there were no restrictions Vegeta had a number of very difficult blasts and attacks that were hard to counter. One such move was a smaller version of his Final Flash. Despite Chiara's promise to focus on the match, the presence of her twin and friend was distracting and when Vegeta fired the Final Flash, it hit her straight in the chest.
"Chiara," Gohan cried as Krillin gasped.
Pain rocketed through Chiara as she fell to the ground and landed hard. Vegeta's grunted in annoyance as he saw her go down.
'Why didn't the runt block it?' he thought, flying down and landing next to her.
"Runt," he barked. "What's the matter with you?"
Chiara struggled to sit up, her eyes closed and her teeth gritted, the pain evident on her face.
"Why didn't you block it, Chi?" Gohan asked, crouching next to her, his face more than a little worried.
"I don't know," Chiara ground out, the pain making it difficult to talk. "I must be losing my touch."
"Nonsense," Vegeta spat. "You were distracted by the presence of your brat brother and the chrome-dome, just like I knew you would be."
"Hey," Krillin protested. "For the last time, Vegeta, I'm not bald anymore."
Vegeta ignored him and snatched Chiara up from the ground, not quite as gently as Gohan would have liked.
"Hey, be careful, Vegeta," he warned.
Vegeta ignored Gohan as he had ignored Krillin and flew up and towards Capsule Corporation with Chiara in his arms, all the while scolding her for not paying attention. Gohan and Krillin were right behind him.
"I told you a million times, no matter what the circumstances, no matter who's around, you don't take your eyes off your opponent," Vegeta ranted.
"Yes, Senpai," Chiara said, his scolding hurting more than physical injuries ever could.
"'Yes, Senpai'," Vegeta repeated, though not mockingly. "That's what you say every time."
Chiara swallowed hard and nodded, not knowing what else to do. The pain in her chest was getting worse and there were now black dots appearing in her vision. Vegeta flew Chiara to Capsule Corporation and took her inside, Gohan and Krillin still on his heels. Vegeta carried her into the lab, ignoring Bulma's worried exclamations and took her to one of the rejuvenation tanks. Bulma and Trunks joined them.
"Thank you, Senpai," Chiara whispered, blinking away the darkness that invaded her vision.
"For what?" Vegeta grunted.
"For helping me," she said softly.
"Don't delude yourself, runt. The only reason I'm doing this is because Kakkarot will have my head if he finds out I hurt you," Vegeta said.
Chiara nodded and smiled slightly. Though Vegeta's words were harsh, something in his eyes told her that what he was saying was far from true. Vegeta placed her in a rejuvenation tank which, much to his eternal amusement, was still too big for her and, now that she had stopped growing, always would be. He chuckled as he placed special liquid-proof pillows in it to make her comfortable.
"Why are you…?" Chiara began, but she was cut off when Vegeta placed the oxygen cap on her mouth.
"What was that, runt? I didn't quite catch that," Vegeta said with a grin.
Chiara briefly scowled at him but she was too tired to keep it up. She leaned against the inside of the tank as Vegeta closed it and let it fill with healing fluid.
"How long will it take her to heal?" Gohan asked worriedly.
"She's small and she doesn't weigh much, so I'd say about an hour," Vegeta said.
Gohan nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off his twin sister. He stayed next to the tank along with Krillin, while Vegeta went back to his training, confident that his runt student would be just fine. Bulma asked Gohan and Krillin what had happened and exclaimed angrily when she heard.
"Leave it to Vegeta to blame it on her while he was the one who shot her," Bulma cried.
Trunks ignored Krillin's response to Bulma's cry as he walked up to the rejuvenation tank, he placed his small hands on the glass and shoved his nose up against the glass.
'Get better, Chi,' he thought. 'I hate it when you're hurt.'
Bulma called ChiChi to let her know what had happened but it was Goku who wound up coming by. He told Bulma he had convinced ChiChi to stay home, before he made his way over to the tank and looked in. His daughter was sitting amidst an array of pillows, her head leaning on the tank, her eyes closed. Goku tapped on the glass with one finger. Chiara's eyes opened and she locked eyes with her dad.
"Hey there, sweetheart," Goku said, with a small smile. "Rough fight, huh?"
Chiara tried to smile behind the oxygen cap but only managed to hurt herself as she immediately cringed in pain. Goku frowned, it hurt to see her like that.
'I can only imagine how Gohan feels,' Goku thought, glancing at his son, who was still watching Chiara.
"She's beat up pretty bad, what happened?" Goku asked, tension evident in his voice.
"Vegeta beat up on her as usual," Bulma said, her arms crossed.
"It's not quite like that," Krillin said quickly, alarmed as the look on Goku's face darkened. "Chiara failed to block one of Vegeta's moves, and this is the result."
"The runt was distracted," Vegeta said from behind them all. "It's not my fault your other brat and the chrome dome showed up."
Krillin sighed but decided to just give up on getting Vegeta to stop calling him chrome dome. Goku turned away from Vegeta to look at his daughter again. He knew Vegeta hadn't really done anything wrong. She had been distracted, and they had been training. No one held back while training. But he couldn't help but feel that Vegeta was too hard on her, this feeling only magnified by the fact that his only daughter was now hurt badly enough that she needed a rejuvenation tank. He shook his head to shake the feeling off. This was an accident. That's all it was. Just an accident.
775 A.D. July the 13th.
Goku frowned as he watched his daughter drag herself to the stairs. It had been two days since the Final Flash incident and now she was hurt again. Oh, she claimed she was fine, but Goku wasn't blind. He knew she wasn't fine and he knew it was because of Vegeta. It was time for it to stop. If Vegeta couldn't train her without hurting her, he shouldn't be training her at all. Goku was back now anyway, he could take over training her now.
"Honey," he called to ChiChi. "I'm gonna go over to the Capsule Corporation for a while."
ChiChi stuck her head out of the kitchen to look at her husband. "It's almost dinner time, Goku."
"I know, I won't be long," Goku said, before heading for the door.
ChiChi nodded slowly, not quite knowing what to make of the fierce scowl on her husband's face. "Okay."
Vegeta had known it was coming. It had been in the air since Kakkarot had returned shortly before the Buu battle. The realization that he had missed out on so much in his daughter's life, while Vegeta had been there for all of it. The jealousy and resentment over the fact that Vegeta had been a large part of the runt's life in the last seven years.
"Vegeta," Kakkarot's voice came.
Vegeta nodded to himself. Judging by the tone of Kakkarot's voice, things were about to come to a head. As he turned to face his nemesis, Vegeta acknowledged to himself that this wasn't just a chance to outdo Kakkarot, that he did in fact care for the runt.
Though he would probably never tell her, he considered her his own. Seven years of spending nearly every day with the girl had bred a fondness of her in him. He supposed this was how the Namek felt. Like the green man had once said, 'Damn kids, they get under your skin and then refuse to get back out.'
Of course, Piccolo had been talking about both the runt and her twin and Vegeta had never had much to do with the latter, except when the brat came by the Capsule Corporation to see his sister, something Vegeta had never been pleased about. It was difficult enough to get the runt to pay attention at the best of times, add the brat brother and it was impossible.
Which was the whole reason why Vegeta now found himself facing an irate father. True, the confrontation would have taken place eventually anyway, but the process had been sped up significantly by the runt getting hurt two days previous and again today. Kakkarot appeared, the scowl on his face and the tension in his stride tell-tale signs that a fight was imminent.
"We need to talk," Goku said as he approached the man he felt was trying to take his daughter away.
Vegeta's nod was barely perceptible but Goku saw.
"Chiara came home injured again today," Goku began. "Wanna explain to me what happened this time?"
"The runt wasn't paying attention," Vegeta said simply.
Goku's scowl deepened. There was that word again. Runt. Why couldn't he stop calling her that?
"So you beat her up?" Goku ground out. "Because she wasn't paying attention?"
"If the girl wants to get stronger…" Vegeta began.
"Listen to you," Goku exploded. "Runt, girl. She has a name, Vegeta. A name I gave her. Have you ever used that name? In the past seven years have you ever once called her Chiara?" He continued before Vegeta could speak. "Have you ever told her that you love her? That you care? Do you worry about her? Do you ever think about how she's doing in school? Whether or not she has any friends? If she's ever lonely? Do you even care?"
"If you care about her so much where have you been the last seven years?" Vegeta spat in return, now losing his temper as well. "Huh? Answer me that. Where were you when she needed you? When above all else she needed her father, what were you doing? Having your little training sessions with perfect strangers in Other World. Having a good time with your friends. Being anywhere except where you needed to be. I may not be her biological father but who was it that trained her for the past seven years? Who's been there for her whenever she needed someone?"
Goku fumed as he glared at his fellow Saiyan. The bastard was rubbing it in. Not only had he had the nerve to try and take Goku's place in Chiara's life, he was now rubbing it in as well.
"In other words," Vegeta continued. "Chiara's my daughter in all but blood."
That did it. Goku lost it. All he saw the gloating man in front of him. All he felt was the need to shut him up. All he heard were Vegeta's words, 'Chiara's my daughter'. Goku screamed as he charged at Vegeta, who was meeting him head on.
He was vaguely aware that his hair had grown to be much longer, that the area around him had been destroyed, that there were people screaming. None of it mattered. All that mattered was making the man in front of him pay.
Both Saiyans saw red as they fought, completely focused on their struggle. Neither were aware of the people around them and neither saw the intervention that came out of nowhere coming. When they both became aware of their surroundings again, they realized that they were about ten feet away from eachother now, with an obviously distressed but fully healed Chiara between them.
"Stop it," the female Saiyan yelled, before saying more quietly, "Just stop it."
Chiara took a deep breath to calm herself as she stood between them. She had become aware of her father's powerlevel rising as she lay on her bed, exhausted but satisfied after a long training. She had been only slightly worried until she had felt her father powering up into Super Saiyan form.
It had taken her mere seconds to teleport to Korin's place, snatch a senzu bean and, after consuming it, teleport to the Capsule Corporation. Upon arriving there she had seen the awful sight of her father and her Senpai fighting, not sparring, but genuine fighting. She hadn't even thought about it, she had just jumped in and separated them as best as she could, the element of surprise the only reason she had been able to.
She looked back and forth between the two still seething Saiyans, noting in dismay that they were both bleeding. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, emotion making her voice break. "Why are you fighting?"
Vegeta folded his arms and turned away slightly. Goku powered down from his Super Saiyan state and lowered his head, looking ashamed, though still angry.
"Senpai?" Chiara asked, but Vegeta said nothing so she turned to her father. "Dad?"
Goku was silent for a long moment. "He hurt you," he finally said.
"We were training," Chiara said.
"You're hurt every time you come home. Training shouldn't be like that," Goku said firmly.
"When I trained with you and Piccolo, I also got hurt a lot, that never stopped you," Chiara said. Goku was silent so she continued, "What is this really about?"
"He thinks I'm trying to take his place as your father," Vegeta finally spoke up.
"I don't think that, I know that," Goku ground out.
"What?" Chiara breathed in disbelief. "You think…"
"Yes, he thinks," Vegeta spat, cutting her off. "I've had enough of this. See if you can talk some sense into him, runt. If not, I'll beat it into him."
And before either Goku or Chiara could speak, Vegeta flew off. Chiara watched him go before she turned back to her father.
"There is no such thing as him taking your place as my father. You are my father."
"It doesn't feel like it," Goku said softly. "You spend all your time here."
"To train," Chiara said. "I need to get stronger."
"I can help you get stronger," Goku said.
Chiara was silent for a moment. "You never told me you wanted to train me. I assumed you were too busy training with Gohan and Goten."
"I'll never be too busy to train with you," Goku said.
Chiara said nothing for a moment, relieved at his reassurance. "Training with you would be different from training with Senpai though," she said. "You'd take it easy on me."
Goku opened his mouth to dispute that before closing it again. She was right, he would take it easy on her. He sighed and shook his head. "Okay, so training with me wouldn't do any good to get stronger, but that doesn't mean you have to train with Vegeta."
"Who should I train with then?" Chiara asked gently.
"Gohan," Goku said.
"And he wouldn't take it easy on me?" Chiara asked with a smile.
Goku smiled as well at that, scratching the back of his head. "I guess he would."
Chiara was glad to see him smile but knew that what she was about to say would probably take the smile away again. "I'm not going to stop coming here."
Goku looked at Chiara, a small frown forming on his face again.
"Senpai means a lot to me and I enjoy training with him," Chiara said. "But you don't ever need to worry about him taking your place. He's not trying to do that at all and besides, like I said, there's no such thing."
Goku forced himself to nod and smile, not at all convinced, but not wanting to upset his daughter. He spread his arms and sighed in relief when Chiara accepted his hug.
Later that night, while sitting outside on the porch, Goku was still brooding. No matter how many times his daughter told him that Vegeta wasn't trying to take his place and he would always be her father, he still had his doubts. The thought of seven lost years ate at him and made him wonder what he had been thinking staying away for that long. Would things have been different if he hadn't?
His attention was drawn from his thoughts when the door to the house opened and admitted a small and, in Goku's eyes at least, utterly beautiful woman. Son ChiChi quietly joined her husband on the porch and sat next to him in silence for a long while. When she finally spoke, Goku wasn't sure he wanted to hear it.
"Vegeta isn't taking your place, Goku," she started softly, having obviously decided to not beat around the bush. "You're her father, and she loves you. Why do you think she was so angry when you left and didn't come back? Why do you think it was so hard for her to forgive you? She loves you, she always has and she always will, but no matter how close you and Chiara are, and no matter how close you become, you can't erase the seven years she has spent around Vegeta. He's become a very important part in her life."
Goku bristled at this but ChiChi held up a hand to stop him from speaking and continued, "He is her mentor and he always will be, but no one on this planet, or any other planet, has the power to take her away from you. No one."
Goku was silent for a long moment before he let out a deep sigh.
"I guess I've been acting like a fool, huh?" he said softly.
"No, Goku," ChiChi disagreed. "You haven't been acting like a fool. You've been acting like a father. Like any father who loves his daughter would. That doesn't mean it's the right way to behave, but it does mean that it's only natural and that I understand." She kissed Goku on the cheek, giving him a small smile, before getting up and going back inside.
Goku sighed. He didn't want to lose his little girl, but if she kept training with Vegeta, and she never spent any time with him, wasn't that the same as losing her? Maybe ChiChi was right, maybe there was no such thing as him losing her. He tiredly rubbed his face, wondering once again if things might have been different if he had come back years earlier or if he hadn't gone away at all.
He didn't know and, as he got up, he realized that it didn't matter. His daughter would probably want him to apologize to Vegeta and Bulma was no doubt furious with him, but none of it mattered to him. The house behind him held all that would ever matter to him. His wife and his three children. Nothing, and no one, would ever take them away, and he almost pitied the person who tried.
'Yes,' he thought to himself as he headed in. 'Almost.'