(A/N: Well hello and welcome to the fic. Let me first say that I do not own DBZ or any of the shows for that matter. I will also say that I am not now, nor have I ever been a fan of GT. I do not hate any of the characters, and I want to make that clear. But this will end up as a Pan/Piccolo story with a side of Gohan/Vegeta. So if you don't like it please click away now.)
Chapter 1—Waste Away
The water fall roared in his ears, keeping the sounds of the outside world at bay, allowing him to focus entirely on his meditation. It was something that he relied on more and more to keep his strength up and his wits about him. He had recently removed himself from the others. In fact he had done so almost entirely without telling anyone about it. He took to hiding in the forested mountains, hoping against better judgment that he would get a handle on the sickness that was gripping him.
There was something beyond seriously wrong with his digestive tract, even the simplest and most modest of Namekian diets (spring water and fruit juice) were too much for his body to handle. He had been rendered incapable of keeping anything down and found that no matter how little he drank he was vomiting several times a day. He had gotten thin in the last weeks, and his body was perpetually shaking, refusing to cooperate with him. So, of course he assumed that he was dying.
Not even Kami or the ever smugly knowledgeable Nail knew anything; they couldn't even give him a guess. Certainly there had to be a cause for his pain and weakness. There had to be a reason for the illness ravaging his insides, he just wasn't sure that the curiosity was enough to keep him going anymore. Either it wasn't important to him or deep down he didn't care, he wasn't sure of that either.
If he was going to die (and he knew that he was) he wished to do so alone, away from people that cared about him. They could easily ruin the quiet peace of his death with their questions and concerns over his well-being. If only they didn't care so much he might have stayed around him, but he just couldn't. The one person he hoped to avoid above all others was Gohan, the boy (now a man) that had taught his heart the strange sensation of emotion outside the realm of hate.
His student was 25-ish, had a wife and a new daughter to deal with. If Piccolo clung to one hope it was that Gohan's new life would somehow mask the steady drop of his former master's power level. He didn't want the kid to see him go, and with the persistence of his illness he was planning for his death to occur inside of the month. There would be no Dragon Balls to wish him back, the Dragon adamantly refused to bring back those that had died of natural causes or had found peace in the afterlife.
What Piccolo did know was that Kami and Nail were not going to let him die without saying goodbye to Dende. The Guardian had thought well of all three of them and as such deserved to know that they were going to leave the world. It was just something that Piccolo hoped to put off so that the younger Namekian wouldn't feel like he had failed to do something to save them.
(A/N: Okay, that's the end of the chapter. Short I know, but I've been challenged to write a story in a way that is unusual for me. One page per chapter, as in one side of a sheet of paper. It was interesting to me so I decided to try it. Next chapter is 'To the Look Out' it should be up soon.)