CHAPTER 4

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. However, somewhere in the aching skull of the saiyan warrior Gerabanzo - who also went by Gendo Rokubungi, for reasons that were his own - the nagging thought was that nothing like this had ever happened to him before. The past might have been a foreign country, but it was nowhere near as foreign as the present.

"Gwah?" he managed, cracking open an eye and regretting it. The light was far too bright, lancing into his brain and bringing only pain with it.

Yui put down the pen light. "Good morning, and congratulations," she said. "Your eyes aren't glowing anymore. That's a good sign."

"What. Happen'd?"

"Well, hmm. I can only diagnose things externally, but you stared up at the moon, your eyes started glowing, and I could see black veins under your skin. Is that a thing you do frequently?" He could vaguely make out the fact that she had her notepad out, pencil at the ready.

"Last thing I 'member, ev'rything went black," Gerabanzo mumbled.

"Well, yes. It's natural for everything to go black when I put my coat over your head," Yui said.

"Huh?"

"Well, it seemed obvious to me that the moon was the source of your distress. And clouds and buildings stopped it - because I hadn't observed it earlier - so blocking the moonlight would seem to work."

"... huh. There's some'ing ver' wrong with your moon," he rumbled. He felt sick, and could taste blood in his mouth.

"There is? That's something very, very interesting indeed." Yui paused. "Let's get you cleaned up, and then maybe we can talk more. I can probably find you some food, too - and fortunately Mari went out this morning."

Gerabanzo felt much better after emptying Yui's breadbin, and soon he was sitting on her bed, hair still damp.

"You didn't mention any strange reaction with moons before," Yui said, fingers steepled. "Was that not something normal?"

He scowled. "Under the light of the full moon, we can assume our mighty Great Ape forms," he said reluctantly.

"Gosh!" Yui said happily, perking up. "How big? Three metres tall? Four?"

"... more like forty."

"Incredible! And that's… a thing everyone in your species can do?"

"Everyone with a tail, yes. Cutting off our tail stops us doing it, or forces us to turn back."

Yui's eyes narrowed. "A tail? But… that makes sense? Is that the location of your core? No, that doesn't make sense…"

It was her that didn't make sense, and he told her as much. "There's something very wrong with your moon," he added, glaring. "I've never had that happen on any world before. Normally I'd be filled with raw fury and lose control and go on a rampage. It wouldn't hurt me!"

"... you didn't think to mention it?"

Gerabanzo shrugged. "It wasn't the night of the full moon yet. It didn't matter." He held his head in his hands. "What happened? What's wrong?"

Yui rose from the bed, and perched herself on her table, facing him. "I think I know what it's related to," she said. "You're fortunate you know me, you know. Not many people are as well-informed as me. It isn't common knowledge.."

"What isn't?" he demanded, patience wearing thin.

"So, let me explain the Impact Hypothesis..."

"So, let me get this straight," Gerabanzo said after Yui had finally finished talking. The sun was up fully by this point, and streaming in through her window. "Long long ago, a super-powerful alien race landed on this world. And then a second super-powerful alien race landed on the same world, and the collision formed the moon. And that means the crop fields on your moon are probably contaminated with… absolute terror? Because it's a scary moon with a scary face?"

"... if you really want to simplify it that much, yes," Yui said, looking very pained. "Apart from the bit about the scary moon. That's not what an Absolute Terror Field is."

"Hah! Well, those alien races can't have been that powerful! They got replaced by your species!"

"Oh," said Yui, a slightly nasty smile on her lips, "where did anyone say anything about 'replacement'? We are the progeny of the second of these beings - we call it the Second Angel. Each human, individually, is a tiny fraction of the might of-"

"A very tiny fraction."

"Do you mind? I'm trying to be dramatic here!" Yui snapped.

"I don't want drama! I want explanations!"

Yui pouted, sighing as she ran her fingers through her brown hair. "Fine. Putting it more simply, I suppose you could say that humans are all little bits of a very, very powerful being." She sat back, waiting expectantly for an explosion or outrage.

Gerabanzo considered this. "That sounds possible," he said, after trying to fit it in his mind in a few different ways. He wondered why his scouter hadn't detected that - but then again, they were made by the lowest bidder on one of Frieza's planets.

"You're taking this remarkably well."

"Why? There are several alien races who can split their power between many weaker forms. Ichtarians, Saladabars, Namekians…" He crossed his arms. "I think it's even a learnable technique. So I suppose your progenitor was just a very stupid one that overused the technique and then forgot it was meant to be one being."

Yui harrumphed. "For a man who considers a tie a piece of advanced technology, you're being too calm about this."

"Huh?" He didn't understand her right now. Being the very rubbish descendent of a super-powerful alien race was just the sort of thing that happened.

"Never mind." She sighed. "Your hypothesis is… not impossible. We're not sure exactly what the early Lilin - that's another term for human - were like. There is indeed a school of thought in metaphysical biology that it may have been some kind of accident."

"Well, of course." His brow wrinkled. "I can't think why any species would want to be as weak as you humans. We aren't happy and we train and try to become more and more powerful. Why, our legends have stories of a more powerful form some of us could once take - the legendary super-saiyan!"

Yui perked up. "Oh! Was there any mention of bird-like masks in those tales?"

"No. Why?"

"... no reason."

"Hmm." Gerabanzo looked at Yui suspiciously. "And I assume that some humans plan to fuse with others to reclaim their old power?"

"I don't know what you mean," Yui said quickly.

"You know exactly what I mean. I know that's a thing that some aliens can do. And I know you, and that's probably the first thought you had when you found out," he said. Yui even managed to look somewhat guilty at that. "And it's what I'd do too." He paused. "Just two question. What does your true form look like?"

"My true…" Yui paused. "Oh, I see. Honestly, I don't know exactly. But it's probably pale, very large and may or may not have red eyes."

"Mmm. Next question. Can it fire energy beams from its mouth?"

"Hopefully!" Yui said firmly.

Gerabanzo nodded. "That's the right answer."

Alas, much to her personal annoyance Yui couldn't spend all the time with her new boyfriend. She had a degree to complete, and her future career plans didn't entail dropping out.

Staring out the window, she smiled to herself. One advantage of a non-human boyfriend was that there wasn't a risk of an accidental pregnancy. Motherhood wasn't in her plans for a long time - not when there were things like 'become a world-famous scientist', 'take over the world', and 'become immortal' as rather more pressing needs. Babies could follow immortality, if ever.

But right now what she was doing was taking significant amounts of her attention. It was unfortunately a necessary step in her plans, but it was a very boring step. And there was no way to do it other than the long, slow and painful way to do this.

Alas, a final review of her latest paper had to be done. Even if she didn't make mistakes, she had to pretend that she could - just in case she ever did. People would sneer at her if she did, and she couldn't be having that.

Sitting at the computer, Yui glared at the screen and plotted malevolent revenge against whoever had decided that she couldn't just cite herself. It was such a curse being more intelligent than your sources. And they kept on putting her name in the middle of the list of names, so people like Dr Furutaka and Dr Amagi could steal her credit. Some day she would remedy this. Some day.

This paper would help her case, at least. She'd stumbled across the paper she was responding to while doing research for her project, and while it had had some good ideas there was so much that could be done better. Since it was a literature review and critique, she could put herself in the most prominent location without getting relegated just because she was an undergraduate.

And of course, she'd made sure that she would be getting this published. All she'd needed to do was drop Daddy's name in an email conversation with the publisher, and - voila, he was suddenly very willing to make sure her paper got a fair showing.

It looked good. Time to get it printed and then submitted. She clicked print, and waited as the printer in her office hummed to life. She technically wasn't meant to have a postgraduate office as an undergraduate, but rules were so easy to bend when you applied the right pressure in the right place.

Now, coffee time.

"Oh Yui!" Professor Fuyutsuki called out to her while she waited for the coffee machine to grind and whir its way into actually filling her mug.

"Ah, sensei," she said, smiling. "I'm just printing the paper now."

"It is very good," he said admiringly. "If you're doing work of this quality now, I can't think what you'll manage next year. I just hope you don't burn out young." He paused. "Have you been taking care of your body? Eating well? Not getting too many late nights?" he asked, not quite meeting her gaze.

"I'd say so," she said. "I've been up a bit late recently, but now I've finished this paper." This was technically true, but not actually related. "I have found a new thing to do outside of research, so we'll see how that goes."

"Oh?"

Her eyes gleamed wickedly. "You'll see soon enough."

"... should I be worried?" Kozo asked.

"Of course not."

Professor Fuyutsuki shuffled his feet. "It's good," he said, uncertainly. "Only I'd heard you went through a bad break-up recently."

Yui shrugged. "Not really."

"And I just want to say," he said, resting his hand on her shoulder paternally, "I'll always… wait, what?"

"Not really. I'd wanted to dump him for ages. I just needed an excuse."

The older man floundered. "Uh… well, that's good, I suppose. I hadn't thought he was good enough for you anyway."

"Well, yes, Mari said that too," Yui agreed.

"She's a smart girl," Kozo said. He coughed. "And… uh, Yui, something I've been meaning to bring up for a while?"

"Yes, sensei?"

"Have you been sending passive-aggressive corrections and bragging emails about your latest work to other academics again?"

"Why, sensei! I don't know what you mean? How could someone so innocent and a mere undergraduate like me ever do such things?" Yui said, fluttering her eyelashes.

Fuyutsuki sunk his head into his hands. "You have, haven't you?"

"Well… maybe a few…"

"How many?"

"I don't think that's really important," Yui said sanctimoniously. "After all, haven't you always told me it's the quality of your research that matters, not the quantity? And that a good academic should always welcome constructive criticism?"

"We've been getting complaints, you know."

"Then they should stop being wrong. They brought it on themselves."

Somewhere in another university in Japan, a woman gritted her teeth as a new email arrived and she saw who had sent it.

"Dr Akagi," the email read,

One thing of interest is next month's 'Metaphysical Biology of Japan'.
Look for an article dissecting your theories on the use of organic components in computing.
Despite the many problems in your paper and the lack of proper peer review, there's some hope.

Hopefully some of my corrections will help you avoid making the same mistakes again.
At least you're not quite as bad as Dr Furutaka!
Good luck!

Regards,

Yui Ikari"

Naoko Akagi gritted her teeth, glaring at the screen as if she wished she could throttle its sender.

"Ikaaaaaaaaaari!"

"... and in lighter news, there have been a wave of crop circles reported in the countryside. Government officials have warned that while it might seem like a light-hearted prank, some of the culprits have been apparently using explosives and starting fires to produce craters. We now go live to…"

"Ha!" Gendo said, baring his teeth. It looked like they'd found some of his countryside training spots. He couldn't let himself get out of practice, after all. He gave his punching bag a flurry of blows, and sent it flying across the room.

The locals here were very amenable to someone with a lot of money trying to rent an apartment. It was almost set up to his personal preference - blank concrete walls, a bed, nothing to get in the way. After spending so long crammed inside a pod, too much living space felt wrong to him. And the less he spent on useless things like 'carpets' and 'painted walls', the more he had to spend on food.

There were also very, very thick blackout curtains. He didn't want to have to cut off his tail. It was part of who he was. That meant that what he had to do was keep out of the poisoned moonlight of this world.

He did, however, have a television. It was something to watch, and he particularly liked the local shows where they inflicted pain on themselves for the sake of the amusement of the viewers. They called them 'game shows', but he called them real entertainment.

Gerabanzo knew he was finding time to fill his days, but he didn't care. As long as he didn't have too much time alone to think about things, he could almost forget that almost everyone he knew was dead. He might be the last member of his species left. All alone in the cold blackness of space, probably hunted by the Galactic Frieza Army. The last of the saiyans.

A better warrior than him would probably have sought vengeance. They would have trained hard, fought to within an inch of their life, healed, and then trained again. They would have put everything they had into being the instrument of justice for the saiyan race; punishment personified. Someone like Cale, Nappa or Bardok would have been raring for revenge, he just knew it.

Not him. He wasn't one of those brave, powerful warriors. He didn't know their secret techniques. He'd been in the Recon Corps! It trained you more for patience and the ability to tolerate cramped spaces for extended periods than it trained you in the fighting arts. He could train for years to get his revenge - and in the end, he'd still just be killed by elite soldiers like the Ginyu Force.

So hiding was his only choice. But here, with its poisonous moon, was not somewhere he'd want. In all the cold blackness of space, there had to be somewhere better…

… except for Yui. She was here, She was a star of light in this cold, numbing void. Maybe he should take her away from here. Find another world - but what if she said no? She was so weak, after all. How could she survive in space where he, too, would be hunted. He couldn't even guarantee that he'd keep her safe.

Slumping down on his bed, he stared up at the cold grey ceiling.

"Damn it all," he muttered to himself. If only Yui had been a saiyan. Things would have been perfect then. Instead, she was a human - aka apparently also lilin, he wasn't quite sure what was going on there - and so weak.

He really did need to start training her. Maybe within a decade, she might not-instantly-die if a saibaman looked her way with hostile intent.

Rolling over, he looked at the pile of books he'd got to try to help him learn these aliens' script. Their language was identical to Galactic Standard, but their writing wasn't. But he didn't want to do that. He couldn't face being alone.

He decided to head over to Yui's place and see if she had plans for tonight. He certainly did, and they involved her.

There was a letter tucked under his door, written in red ink. He glanced at it, but paid it no attention. It wasn't one of the fliers from the nearby fast-food restaurants which made food cheaper, so he wasn't interested in putting the time into translating it.

And then on the way there, several someones tried to kill him.

Gendo was whistling as he arrived back at Yui's apartment. He swept her off her feet to a death-glare from Mari, carrying her in a bridal carry through to her bedroom.

"You're in a good mood," she said, nuzzling him as she pulled off her top.

"I am," he said happily. "Fighting is always relaxing."

Yui paused in the act of trying to undo her bra. "Sorry, what?"

"Oh, a bunch of idiots in black suits with silly little guns shot me," Gerabanzo said. He pulled off his top, tossing it to her. "Look, there's the bullet holes."

"... are you hurt?" she said, holding it up to the light. Now she looked more closely, she could see that there were enough holes in his t-shirt that it looked like enthusiastic moths had gone after him.

"What, from little things like that?" he sneered, poking at his chest. "I've had worse insect bites." Actually, it had stung a fair bit and he just knew he was going to bruise - and things would have gone worse if he hadn't been ready - but she didn't need to know that.

"Really?" Yui asked, leaning forwards, eyes bright. "What kind of insects? I'd love to see! Maybe get my hands on some DNA samples and… wait, no, focus! So people just stopped you and… tried to shoot you?"

"They said something about me 'not listening to warnings'," Gerabanzo said helpfully.

"What warnings?"

"I don't know, woman!"

"... of course you don't, if you weren't listening to them. Oh," said Yui, pinching her brow. "That was probably Daddy."

"Daddy?"

"My father," Yui said self-deprecatingly. "Those were probably his enforcers sent to scare you off. Or kill you." She gritted her teeth. "Oh, Masaaki! That whiny little baby! Running off to Daddy to complain that I dumped him!"

Gerabanzo cracked his knuckles. "He's struck a blow against me. If he wants to fight, I should go find and splatter this Masaaki."

"Maybe later," Yui said, lips pursed. She disentangled herself from him, pacing up and down. "Hmm. Let me just think. If I were Daddy, what would I do? I'd probably…"

Her phone rang.

"... invite me and my new boyfriend around," Yui said, rummaging through her clothes for her phone. "Hello, Daddy."

She paused, listening to him.

"Why, yes, I do have a new boyfriend. No, I didn't tell you. It hasn't been going on long. No, I honestly don't see how it's any of your… no, I am not disrespecting you. It's just that what I do is my own…" she sighed. "Daddy, I remain suitable for marriage."

Gerabanzo could hear the raised voice at the other end of the phone. Yui held it away from her ear.

"That particular thing has nothing to do with marriage, Daddy" Yui said calmly. "It's 1997. It's the modern day. Look, just put Mama on the phone until you calm down, okay? Hi, Mama. Yes, Daddy is being a little hot-headed, isn't he? Mmm… well, you know, I should have another paper published next week. And…"

Yui covered the phone receiver. "How do you feel about Mama sending assassins after you to test you?" she asked Gerabanzo. "She says it'll help Daddy feel better about things."

He shrugged. "Could be interesting."

"He doesn't mind, Mama," Yui said into the phone. "Although he did just kill all of Daddy's first lot, so don't send anyone too valuable. Yes. Yes. Okay. Try to calm Daddy down, please. Yes, I'll see you there. Love you lots, Mama! And Daddy too, for all that he's being a silly. Bye! Bye! Bye!"

Utterly lost, Gerabanzo just stared at Yui. "Uh…"

"We're going around to my parents' next weekend," Yui said firmly. "And you're going to be on your best behaviour, do you understand?"

"Should I…" he began.

"Don't kill my parents. Only the murderers they send after you." Yui frowned. "It'll annoy Daddy even more to lose more men, but it can't be helped. And it'll certainly make Mama look more favourably on you."

"... is this a human custom?" Gerabanzo asked, vaguely impressed.

"Family tradition," Yui said with a shrug.