Pairing: TienxYamcha
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Shounen-ai, slight gore, character death
Word count: 652

A/N: This is the first fic where I've experimented using (mostly) the present tense. If anyone can give me some crit towards that, it would be appreciated, (please note, I'm just requesting, not demanding. It's your choice).
Disclaimer: I own nothing in connection with the characters used in this fanfiction.

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Last Battle

As one of the creature's many tails slices through Tien, it seems to take all of his senses with it. He can't hear his own pained screams, just knows that his mouth is open and his throat feels raw. All of a sudden his view of the wrecked skyscrapers is slanted, with rubble and dirt at the edge of his vision.

Then Yamcha appears beside him, tells him something, but still Tien can hear nothing. He can only see his mouth move up and down without words coming out.

He swallows. Chokes on his own blood from many broken ribs and a severely punctured lung. Then, all of a sudden, the world is a flood of noise and pain.

"Tien? Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," he croaks. Only one of his three eyes is still open. The vision in his 'good' one clouds again. When he blinks to try and clear it (and, once again, notices that it has less of a positive effect), he sees the streaks of ki of whom he assumes to be Vegeta, the four demi-Saiyans, Android 18 and Uub as they take on the latest alien who has come to Earth seeking the legendary golden Saiyan warrior. It's current transformed state is proving to be much more to handle than previously thought.

For Tien at least. The younger fighters appear to be swiftly taking control of the situation.

Tien grunts. "I'm getting too old for this."

"You and me both," Yamcha says as he looks behind him at the fight with a weary smile.

Goten and Trunks land, shuffle together and, in a flash, Gotenks is whizzing upwards to punch the alien hard on the chin, dodging the razor sharp tails with ease as he goes.

Watching the nimble warrior makes Tien suddenly remember why he is on the ground. He tries to roll over to look at the damage, but Yamcha pulls him back down. That is when Tien knows something is very wrong. After having half his arm chopped off so many years ago, the triclops has found that he now has a much better handling of gruesome injuries.

"That bad?" he tries to say jokingly, but finds that his voice strains too much and he isn't able to hold his smile.

Yamcha isn't able to smile either. His mouth moves silently up and down again, but Tien knows that his hearing isn't gone this time, (the noisy sounds of battle are still clear).

The scarred warrior chances another look at Tien's injuries and looks away almost instantly. But the image is already burned into his head. Blood covers the ground around them. Yellowish bone pokes out of neatly sliced flesh. A wrecked lung half hangs from some of the shattered ribcage. Tien's heart still beats slowly and weakly, now visible because all the flesh from his left shoulder down to his stomach has been cut off.

"Yamcha?"

Yamcha faces him again, tries not to look at the missing half as much as he can. He opens his mouth to try and speak, but there is a big, sickening lump in his throat that refuses to budge. Instead he lies down beside Tien, wraps his arms loosely around his neck, flinches back a little when he accidentally brushes against the horrendous wound, and places his head down so that his forehead lightly touches Tien's neck.

"I'm dying... aren't I?" says Tien.

At least he thinks he says it. He can feel his mouth move but his throat feels so tight and sore, and he can't hear anything.

The pain is fading. Is that a good sign? The more he tries to think about it, the more he finds he can't.

His vision starts to blur again. When he blinks to clear it, he can only close his eyelids. They never open again.

He feels Yamcha's breath come warm against his chin. And then nothing else.

END