When he looks back now, the final moments of his first life are those that he remembers the best.
"Juunanagou, look out! He's behind you!"
He barely managed to turn and it only left him time to stare death in the face, his cry of surprise swallowed up by the gaping void above him which clamped down tightly around his shoulders.
"You should have listened to your friend," Cell's voice hissed with undisguised glee, the sucker end of his tail hauling a struggling Juunanagou across the ground and finding little resistance in the white-soled shoes which dug futilely into the soil. Tenshinhan and Piccolo looked on in horror, the former's warning shouted far too late.
"No!" This couldn't be happening. Jurokugou had knocked Cell out for the count. This couldn't be the end! He was Juunanagou, meant to live, to destroy and conquer and have the whole world as his playground in which to serve out his eternal youth!
The cyborg struggled desperately against the force that sucked him greedily upwards, choking on his panic as his kicking feet left the ground and he was dragged upwards into a narrow void. Juunanagou felt himself breaking, arms were still pinned to his sides and his body cracking as he was stuffed through the confined space. He was suffocating. Muffled sounds from the world outside were all he could hear and even they were drowned out by Cell's mad cackle. He thought he heard, vaguely, Tenshinhan and Piccolo calling to him, though if those fools had any sense at all they'd be running. Juunanagou struggled to no avail until he was exhausted; the sucker closed behind him, blotting out all light and throwing him into dead silence.
He could feel, rather than hear, the dull and steady thumping of Cell's heartbeat. Or maybe it was his own. It didn't matter, Juunanagou realised numbly. They were one and the same now, as had been their creator's intention.
Curse you, Gero, he thought bitterly. Giving me this wonderful life, eternal youth and power, only to have it sucked away, and me with it. There was hope for Juuhachigou still, at least.
He drifted for a series of long moments, feeling the strange sensation that his body was slowly collapsing, arms bending to encircle his knees as the tiny space forced him into a foetal position. Soon he was bundled, impossibly tightly, floating in murky, shadowy green.
Which way was up? Juunanagou didn't know, couldn't tell. Those last few minutes of consciousness where he was all too aware that this was the end, with no way of controlling what was to come, were perhaps the worst.
The walls of his prison pulsated. There was a cracking and clenching of biological matter as Cell's body transformed to accommodate this new addition to his being. Sparks like electrical impulses flickered faintly through the dimness; Juunanagou watched them until he grew tired, his very life forced sucked away in an unwilling sacrifice, a contribution to the creation of a far more powerful being.
Snatches of thoughts flitted through his mind, the last of them humorous enough in its irony to bring a faint smirk to his lips.
I will have a hand in destroying the world after all. I just won't be around to enjoy it.
His thoughts trailed away then, and Juunanagou, former threat to the planet Earth, became an empty husk of a man, the artificial light shining in his blue eyes disappearing at long last.
He awoke with a start to a pitch-black sky, which echoed with the rumble of thunder.
Juunanagou blinked and a tremor rippled powerfully through his entire body at the sudden rush of life that had been breathed back into it. Flat on his back, he stared upwards, smooth brow now furrowed in confusion and his fingers brushing past blades of grass to clutch the reassuringly solid earth beneath. He remained silent, pressing back into the earth, and allowed his scattered thoughts to slowly gather themselves.
Any memories he had had of the afterlife vanished like a dream upon waking. The more he tried to remember that softly lit place with the fluttering clouds, followed by the plunge and the cold, rocky caverns of Hell, the harder it was; memories shifted in and out of focus with segments vanishing if he focused on them too directly, like sand shifting through his fingers, until they vanished entirely.
The recollection of his last living moments, his pitiful battle and slow sinking into death, came to him then in bits and pieces, flowing to the forefront of his mind and realigning themselves clearly in his consciousness. Juunanagou knew with an unexplained conviction that much time had passed since then, despite it seeming like mere moments. Something important must have happened, but the strange weather distracted him. He wondered when it would pass.
The thunder and the quiet whistle of wind which rushed by his ear and swept strands of his black hair alongside the grass, were the only sounds. The small island was unnaturally still, its animal inhabitants scared into hiding at the summoning of a supernatural power far greater than themselves.
The time seemed to drag, with Juunanagou making no efforts to move. Presently there was the slightest, barely imperceptible disturbance in the air, followed by a particularly loud roar of thunder which almost sounded almost like someone speaking. The whole world seemed to shudder and suddenly Juunanagou felt an odd lightness within him. Mouthing a silent "huh?" he raised one hand to rest against his chest.
It took him a moment to realise; when the revelation hit, his eyes widened in alarm and he flung himself forwards into a sitting position, fist clenching tightly against the material of his shirt.
His explosive device! The one installed by Gero in case of emergencies... It was gone.
Another question added into the mix of several that were forming rapidly now in his mind.
Juunanagou rifled through his database, a comprehensive bank of information gathered by Gero. It didn't take him long to piece together that this was in fact the dragon balls in effect – the sky, his revival, the removal of his self-destruct mechanism. But still, it didn't make any sense. Juunanagou plucked the stem of a flower between his fingers, tearing it absently as he retreated into his thoughts.
The sky remained unchanged for a long time until eventually the rumbling ceased, leaving peaceful quiet in its wake. Juunanagou raised his head once more, watching the dark fade into blue as the universe resettled into position like things had never been out of place. Animals emerged hesitantly from the foliage, birds began to sing, the nearby water rippled once again with the movements of frogs and fish. From the corner of his eye a beam of orange cut a trail through the cloudless azure but no sooner had he turned then it had vanished, burning spots of light onto the backs of his eyelids. Juunanagou blinked hard a few times, until those too faded.
He stretched, stumbled shakily over to a nearby tree and sat with his back against the trunk where for a while he rested in the sun-dappled shade, collecting his thoughts. He had been absorbed by Cell – a shudder ran through him at the memory – and then… what? If by some miracle Son Goku had defeated Cell, then they must have used the dragon balls to bring him, Juunanagou, back to life.
Why?
Maybe they no longer consider you a threat.
Seized with a sudden burning frustration, Juunanagou pushed abruptly against the tree trunk and leapt effortlessly into the air. He stared at the ground, cold eyes impassive at the sight of animals re-emerging into the sunlight, the simplistic beauty of being alive again lost on him. He hovered with his body clenched taut against the breeze which lifted him slightly upwards, surveying the scene one final time until he had confirmed there was nothing left of interest there. Juunanagou kicked at some invisible foothold, launching himself upward until he became little more than a speck speeding purposefully towards the horizon.
So the Earthlings had brought him back to life, for reasons entirely unclear to him. He had every reason to be suspicious. Perhaps, if Cell was indeed dead, they expected him to align with them.
The cyborg laughed aloud at the thought. How naïve; as though he would forget he still had a mission to carry out.
Well, it was their mistake. Thoughts of revenge, of killing Son Goku and of the Earthlings' faces as he blind-sided them with an attack out of nowhere, brought a wry smile to his thin lips.
They would regret it in time.
But first, to find Juuhachigou, and answers.