The sound of birds chirping outside roused Shourai from his slumber and brought him into the waking world. He let out a deep, cumbersome breath and rolled over onto his left shoulder in the dark. The blue-gray sky leaked in through the glass of his window and cast a dim light over his carpet, but did little to wake him from his morning stupor. He cast a hesitant glance toward his bedside table, which sported an analog clock that he couldn't read in the dark, and threw his feet onto the floor.

His entire body felt cold and heavy, which was probably the worst part of any morning. He supposed that it had something to do with sleep, but biology had never been his strong suit. He knew a lot about a lot of things and could easily explain the nuances of perpetual motion, but figuring out why his toes always felt frozen in the morning was beyond him.

Shourai shook his head in an attempt to alleviate himself of the heavy morning fatigue, but ended up yawning and leaning back against his mattress and bracing himself with his hands. Starbursts of red and green exploded in the corners of his eyes and urged him to go back to sleep, but the young Saiyan managed to get to his feet with another hefty yawn. He stifled it with his fist and stepped toward the closet.

Most of the clothes in the closet were old, covered in dust or too big or too small... but they were his clothes for the time being. They had belonged to his father and were emblazoned with a number of emblems. Most of them held Master Roshi's emblem, but a few played host to King Kai's logo. Then there was the one that he'd worn, tattered on the far end of the closet: ripped and broken, it had once displayed his own name on the back.

He sorted through the rack of clothing until he grabbed a black undershirt off of the rack; it wasn't weighted, but he didn't need a weighted gi to make himself some breakfast and take a bath.

He grabbed a pair of orange pants from the back of the closet, some socks, and a pair of underwear before heading for the door. The baths were on the other side of the Son household, which had been built atop a small but natural hot spring.

Shourai crept through the house as silently as possible, working his way through the dark with a semi-familiarity to his former home. After his father had died, he'd purposefully spent as little time at home as possible. It worried his mother, but a lot of things had that effect. In fact, once Goku had explained to Chi-Chi that Shourai would be staying with them, she'd immediately reacted with outrage. He hadn't bothered to explain that Shourai was, in fact, her son.

Instead, they were going with the cover story that Shourai was going to be a tutor to the still-developing Gohan. It wasn't the perfect story, but Shourai was smart enough that it was a convincing one. Thankfully, he'd always had a soft spot for sciences and literature.

He opened the door to the (literal) bathroom and let the steam greet him all at once. It washed over him and seeped in through the door to coat the hall with a thin layer of vapor, which dissipated a little after he stepped inside.

The morning chill that'd followed him out of bed melted when he closed the door.


By the time he got done with his bath and put his clothes into the laundry basket, the sun had already started to peek out from behind the trees outside. Streamers of glittering light filtered in through the windows and danced across the floor as the trees shivered with the breeze. The dark-haired youth pulled his father's old training shirt over his head and was surprised to see that it fit rather nicely. His father was lean and lithe, his body honed after years of training and maintenance. His own body was a little beefier, more muscular and less well defined. His training had been more for durability than for performance, which was an understandable difference, given the circumstances.

Once he was fully dressed, he went ahead and grabbed the laundry basket by the rim and went outside to hang the clothes on the line. When he was younger, he'd found the chore boring and wasteful, since his time could typically be better spent... doing, well, anything else. Plus, since his mother didn't like him flying, he'd been forced to use a step ladder. Since then, he'd learned the simple pleasure to be taken in accomplishing even the most trivial of tasks.

There was something reassuring about being able to do something, even if it was just hanging clothes. He'd spent hours of his youth just worrying in still silence, unable to move or train or do anything for fear of being discovered by the androids.

The sound of a door closing near the front of the house roused him from his thoughts and practically forced him to turn around.

"Huh? Oh, hey there!" Goku said, stretching out as he approached the laundry line. Unlike his son, he was wearing a simple black wifebeater and a pair of khaki shorts. "You're up pretty early."

Shourai nodded and attached the last shirt to the line before responding.

"Could say the same about you," he began, letting the word 'dad' hang in the silence. "You training today or something? You're not really dressed for it."

Goku grinned and scratched at the back of his head, absentmindedly examining his son's work on the laundry line.

"There's a difference between training and stretching. I've got my training clothes inside. Baba gave me this special chest to hold my weighted clothes, since they'd probably break the floorboards if I kept 'em out. Chi-Chi'd go nuts, y'know?"

The both of them shared a laugh for a second, before Goku broke the silence, which Shourai'd been just about to avoid commenting on.

"You still owe me that spar, by the way," he chided, playfully wagging a finger at his son. Shourai grinned and scratched at his cheek in response, aware that his father was right. They'd had a few days of rest after the battle with Cold, and now things were about to slowly return to normal.

"I'll take you up on that now, if you want. I'm not sure how much stronger I've gotten since that fight though," Shourai said. "I've been sleeping off most of my recovery."

"That's alright. I think you might be just a tiny bit stronger than me anyway. It's not like we're going to be going Super Saiyan just for a spar," Goku said. Judging by the tiny hint of regret in his voice, Shourai could tell that his father almost wanted to do just that. "Unless you wanted to, I mean. I've only ever seen another Super Saiyan once, and that was a few days ago. I didn't even realize I was blond as a Super Saiyan 'till I saw you as one."

Shourai chuckled but shook his head.

"Nah, I think just normal would be fine. I don't wanna get injured all over again. Where did you have in mind, though? I don't wanna wake mom or, uh, myself up."

Goku pointed toward the mountains in the distance and put a hand on his hip, as if he expected Gohan to know, instinctively, where he meant.

"Back there's where my grandpa and I used to train. I guess I never really got to show you when you were younger, on account of the whole heart virus thing, right? I was gonna wait until Gohan was ten to show him... but I guess since you're already older, it's okay if I show you now, right?"

Shourai nodded, and the two had been about to take off when he paused and turned to his father, who was still wearing his wifebeater and khaki shorts.

"You might wanna get dressed first, though. Something tells me Mom wouldn't be too happy if we ruined those shorts. I might not have gotten to see any training ground or anything, but I remember her buying you a bunch of regular clothes when I was younger," he said.

Goku glanced down at the shorts and grinned, tugging at the left pocket for a second.

"Yeah, that sounds about right. I'll go ahead and get changed after all, then! One second!"


Even with the change of clothes, it didn't take either of them long to get to Grandpa Gohan's training grounds. Hidden a few miles away from the Eastern District, it was nestled between the base of Mount Paozu and a small lake. The area had been cleared completely of trees and seemed to be pretty well taken care of despite the fact that nobody had visited it in what must've been a long time. The two Saiyans touched down against the grass and surveyed their surroundings.

"I actually came out here the day after the fight," Goku said.

"Made sure to take care of the grass and keep it from getting too unruly. Since I can't really train near the house, I train out here sometimes. Bulma said she's going to give me one of those gravity machines to put here, if I need it, but I dunno how that'll work. I think she already made one for Vegeta."

"Yeah, she did," Shourai said, putting his hands on his hips. He must've overlooked the place half a dozen times, flying from Capsule Corporation back to the Eastern District. "Gravity machines are pretty convenient. They make you a lot stronger a lot faster, but they're killer on the body. If you use one too much it'll break your bones, too."

Goku whistled, either in appreciation or understanding, and stepped toward the lake, He made sure to pat his knees, which were now covered by a pair of long, beige pants, and stretch carefully before turning back to Shourai. The younger man noted the glint of playful curiosity in his father's eyes even before he spoke.

"You ready?" Goku asked.

Shourai stretched his legs and slowly dropped into his combat stance, lifting one arm up in front of his face and letting his other arm linger down by his hips, which had dropped down to give him a new center of gravity. His boots were planted firmly against the grass and spread apart carefully. The stance was his father's in spirit, but purely Piccolo's in posture. He didn't really notice the difference until Goku dropped into his own stance, which was a lot tighter in nature.

"Yeah. Let's do this, dad!"

A subtle breeze wafted across the morning battlefield as both warriors inhaled, sizing each other up for the brief tussle that was to come. Shourai hadn't had a decent sparring partner in over ten years; sure, there was Trunks... but Trunks was still very rough around the edges. Sparring with Trunks was like playing chess with a pigeon. It often felt like they were on two different levels, playing two different games for two different reasons.

Goku took off first, blasting over the grass toward Shourai with his fists clenched and his eyes narrowed. Shourai sprang backward onto his rear foot and raised his guard up just in time to parry an incoming jab. A flurry of flicker-like strikes followed, most of which Gohan either wove away from or outright blocked. Each blow was lightning fast and precise, but manageable in its own right. It was obvious that his father was just warming up.

The older Saiyan unleashed a dynamite punch with his right hand, which collided with Shourai's left arm and exploded into a veil of smoke and fire. Veins of flame billowed outward from the cloud of emerging smoke as Shourai was blasted out of it, trailed by tendrils of conflagrating red.

Goku sprang out of the cloud and Shourai slid back over the grass, letting his boots crush the sharp blades and skid even further backward. Goku punched at his son's chest and face, only to have his strikes parried and knocked aside. Without waiting for his father to resume his offensive, Shourai buried his fist deep in the older man's face and relished the feeling of recoil as it jolted down the length of his arm.

As Goku fell back, reeling, Shourai reached out and grabbed the older man by his wrist. Goku tugged back for a second, but found himself pulled back in quickly by Shourai's brute strength. The younger Saiyan quickly brought his fist across his father's face and grimaced as the older man grunted with pain. Before he had time to feel any remorse, however, Goku reversed the grip on his wrist and tossed Shourai head over heels toward the lakefront.

Shourai tumbled and stabilized just over the water's edge. The tips of his boots swept across the surface of the lake and sent ripples dancing across it as he regained himself. His dad had vanished completely, energy signature and all.

"Over here!"

Shourai turned just in time to be batted down into the lake by an overhead axe handle. The pain resonated through his entire body as he sank deeper and deeper into the water. Energy wrapped itself around his hands from the base of his wrists to the ends of his fingertips, glowing blue and glittering beneath the surface of the water. He plunged both hands forward and a wave of energy surged forth and broke through the lake.

Goku batted it to the side and ascended upward as Shourai shot out of the water after him; he could tell that the younger Saiyan was just a little bit stronger and faster, but hopefully, that advantage would prove negligible.

Shourai led with his left leg and slid by his father, who dodged a would-be kick to the chin with a quick hop backward through the air.

When the blow failed to make contact, Goku lashed out with an open palm and sent Shourai sprawling through the air. Though the younger man was faster and slightly stronger, his technique was a lot rougher and less refined. It was obvious that his time spent without a sparring partner had been detrimental; there was only so much a single person could do to refine their technique alone. A fighting style was a lot like an experiment. It required testing and was perfected through experience.

When Shourai corrected his course in the air, Goku had already begun darting toward him. A blur of stroke-like punches burrowed deep into his guard and forced him backward through the air, but failed to make any meaningful impact. Though the older man was definitely the more technical of the two, Shourai's superior speed and strength allowed him to play a better defense.

Still, he couldn't win by staying on the defensive.

"Hah!"

Shourai blocked a left handed strike and countered with a heavy kick to the gut, which forced his father to lurch over in pain. Without thinking, he brought his left hand down hard on his father's back and sent him plummeting toward the lake. Goku stopped himself just short of the surface and raced across the water, and fired off a series of sparkling bolts of lightning at his son.

Shourai deflected the first two, but the third and fourth slammed into his chest and stomach, producing tiny clouds of puffy smoke that drifted off as he fell back through the air. His clothes were sopping wet, with water dripping off of him and matting his hair down, but he blew it away by spreading his arms out to the side and summoning his aura.

A flickering flame of sapphire light consumed him and drew the water out of his clothes, evaporating it and drying him off.

Goku grinned from his position near the water and vanished in place, only to reappear a few feet in front of his son, somehow mid-dash. The heel of his boot buried itself deep in Shourai's face and followed him all the way to the ground. When Shourai's shoulders hit the grass and continued to skid, Goku hopped off and took a defensive stance a few feet away.

When Shourai clambered to his feet, he realized that he was already out of breath. The energy he'd blown the other day was still coming back to him in slow spurts, leaving him bereft of his full power. He could already feel the fatigue setting in, but he did, admittedly, feel a lot more awake than he had earlier in the morning. The tiredness of the night had been blasted away by the rush of adrenaline and the speed at which they carried themselves.

The two warriors slowly drifted down to the grass and straightened, with Goku having realized his son's growing fatigue and Shourai aware that he wouldn't be able to go on for much longer.

"Done already, bud?"

Shourai took a moment to gather his breath, and ended up nodding in silence. He should have known that blowing so much energy all at once would take a toll on him. He was almost starting to wish that his father had taken the bag of senzu beans with him when they'd parted ways with the rest of their friends.

"That's alright! This got me warmed up anyway," Goku said, jovially. He strode toward Shourai and extended his hand for the younger man to shake, which he did, if not breathlessly.

"I'm... still recovering. I see why... Vegeta never... tried this."

Goku's brow furrowed for a second before he caught on and nodded.

"Oh, against those cyborg guys? Yeah, I feel like that kinda thing wouldn't work on a moving target anyway. Vegeta's a really smart guy. He wouldn't try anything like that on his own, unless he had someone covering for him."

When Shourai said nothing, Goku went on.

"Is there something on your mind, son? You look kinda pale," he said. There were other signs too, but he didn't bother to bring them up. Everytime he mentioned the future around Shourai, even in passing, the younger Saiyan's face turned a ghastly white. His body language would always change completely, turning the great warrior into a puppy waiting for the shoe to drop down on him. "If you don't wanna talk about it, that's fine."

Shourai straightened reluctantly, still regulating his breathing. His face was a little scuffed from where a few wayward blows had made their mark, similar to his father's own, and the edges of his sleeves were a little frayed from where his father's blasts had made contact with his body, but he was physically fine, otherwise. It was just the fatigue getting to him - he wondered, briefly, if he could convince his father of that.

"It's a hard thing to talk about," he said.

The truth was that he respected his father a lot. His father was the hero that he'd never gotten the chance to be and the savior that he'd always longed for. Even when he was weaker than his opponent, he carried himself with the same air as if he were a champion walking into a prize fight. Son Goku was the definition of strong.

How could he, then, expose his own weakness to such a strength? He knew that his dad wouldn't judge him for his failures, but the darkness inside of him wasn't something that he was ready to bare yet. He would open up with time.

"I didn't say everything to the others, back in the desert."

Goku pursed his lips, but let his son go on nonetheless. He knew that Shourai hadn't mentioned everything, but that was to be expected. He couldn't expect everything out of someone from the future. Time was probably a dangerous thing to mess with. Even if it wasn't changing yet, that didn't mean that things wouldn't change in the future.

"I told them about the cyborgs, but I didn't tell them about... the people left over. It's just me out there, Dad. Me and Trunks," he began. "And a lot of the time, that just doesn't feel like enough. I've tried everything I could. The Ultra Divine Water, fighting them, running from them... It feels like I'm on the verge of something else that I just can't break through to, something that'd let me defeat them."

His fingertips clenched into fists and he held them out in front of his chest, glaring down at them in both anger and frustration.

"I feel like, for as hard as I've tried, I should be so much stronger. When you fought Frieza, you found the strength deep inside to beat him, even when everything was lost. You didn't need anyone's help to do it. What makes me different?"

Shourai looked like he was about to go on, but Goku's stern voice cut in and stole his attention away.

"There's a key difference you're overlooking, Gohan," he said. His tone was both stoic and reassuring, like he was about to give his son an important lecture... but one that carried an important lesson. It was the voice he used when he'd calmed Gohan down after the fight with the Ginyu Force.

"My strength then was something that'd always been inside of me, boiling beneath the surface and waiting to swell up and explode. I was able to call upon it then because I was the one who needed it the most. You said that Trunks is your student, right?"

Shourai nodded, silent.

"Can Trunks go Super Saiyan too?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said it yourself, one Super Saiyan isn't enough to defeat them. If Trunks is Vegeta's son, then he should be able to go Super Saiyan too at some point."

Goku was referencing the conversation they'd had in private a few nights prior, when Shourai had explained things in a more thorough detail. He hadn't risked telling Vegeta about the impending birth of his son on the off chance that it completely changed the timeline and unbirthed was a good kid. He didn't need to be unborn - or never born? Whatever the term was, Trunks didn't deserve it.

"I'm the youngest Super Saiyan in history," Shourai said. "I turned when I was ten years old. I lost a lot to get that transformation. I don't think Trunks has lost anything that would let him transform."

The light behind Goku's eyes changed, like he was about to hit a stride that he'd never been allowed to hit before. He held a single finger up in front of his face, and immediately, a veil of golden light wrapped around it.

"Becoming a Super Saiyan isn't necessarily about a loss. It's about a need. When I transformed against Frieza, it was because I needed to avenge my friend and I needed to save you and Piccolo and Bulma and right the wrongs that he'd done. When I transform in a fight, it's because I feel the need to or because a situation requires me to... or sometimes, just because I want to."

Shourai didn't yet understand - so Goku continued.

"Think about it. Could you go Super Saiyan right now if you wanted? I'm betting you could, and not because you've lost something. Just because you've had that power bubbling beneath the surface for so long that you can call on it when you need it."

The younger Saiyan scratched at the back of his head for a second and examined his father with a mixture of scrutiny and confusion. It was possible that he was correct, but he was working on a lot of assumptions. There had only ever been three Super Saiyans in history - and in Goku's timeline, there'd been only two so far. Super Saiyans weren't something you could find at a bargain sale.

"I dunno, Dad. Maybe you're right, but Trunks is too young to fight with me anyway. I don't want to risk his life to defeat them," he said. "I've lost too many people already."

Goku nodded, solemnly, and the energy along his finger extinguished itself.

"I'm not saying you have to make him transform, I'm just saying that maybe you're putting too much of the burden on yourself. You're my son, Gohan. I know you can beat 'em, eventually. Don't be afraid to ask for help to do it."

He let the silence hang a second - and then grinned.

"Besides, by the time you go back, you'll be strong enough to take 'em both on by yourself! Once you recover from fighting Cold, you'll probably be even stronger already. I know that the beating I got toughened me up a little, too. I wasn't even hurt that bad. Just pretty bad."

Shourai smiled at the idea of being able to defeat both of the androids by himself, though the idea still felt a little far fetched. Honestly, he still had a lot of things left to say that their conversation just hadn't hit, but he could tell that the conversation was over for now.

"We should probably start heading back to the house," he said. "Mom's probably going to be getting up soon."

Already, the morning sun had spread into the sky and now loomed over the valley. The two of them glanced up at the sky for a moment, both trying to estimate the time of day.

"Yeah, it's probably about eight by now. She said she had some errands to run at ten in West City, so she'll probably want me to take her over to Bulma's or something. Do you know what you've got to go over with... Lil' Gohan today?"

Goku's grin was contagious and Shourai couldn't help but smile with him. The idea of calling his younger self 'Lil Gohan' was almost too much. He was somewhat glad that he'd decided to give himself a nickname to keep things simple, even if his father hadn't yet taken to calling him by it.

"Like I said, Dad. Call me Shourai. I think Mom might catch on if she hears you call me that in front of her. She's not stupid, y'know," he said.

"Ah, alright. Fair point! Still, let's head back. I don't want your mom to think that I went off to go hang out with Krillin again. She's been really nice ever since I got back, but I don't wanna worry her."


A/N: So this was actually about the length of the last chapter and another half of a chapter. I was looking over the word counts when I got home (about an hour before posting this) and realized that. I'm sorry, I almost feel like I lied to you guys!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, which was a little bit more light hearted than the last few, and a little bit more feelsy too. The chapter coming up next will deal with a few things at once, notably interactions between Gohan and Shourai, Shourai and Chi-Chi, and Shourai and some of the other Z-fighters.

An early question about this fic was whether or not this fanfiction would allow the humans some time in the spotlight. I'd like to think that, as the story progresses, the humans are going to become more and more relevant as their potential is realized. Keep your eyes out next chapter for (unmissably large) appearances by Yamcha and Krillin!