A/N: I promise dot myself that I'd hit the books for this week... oh well... here we see just how good I am at keeping promises to myself concerning school... I should be working on my GE4 project because my whole course grade depends on it... oh well... But here's the update! Enjoy! Thank you for all lovely reviews! You guys are so sweet! ( Cackles to herself as she thinks of all the secrets and twists and --------- nothing...)
Disclaimer: No, Kinoha isn't a billionaire but a poor student trying desperately apply for a summer job... and she hardly owns her own lap top used for this!
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Chapter IX – Where has the high commander gone to?
Almost a week had passed since the incident between high commander Kakarotto and kitchen slave ChiChi, though none knew about it. The assassinations were few and far in between and Kakarotto was forced to keep on alert all the time for her life as reluctant as he was. The atmosphere around them was heavy and tense that it almost crushed you to the floor with it's pure solidness and heaviness. Instead of their usual yelling and bickering they just stared at each other indifferently or with meaningful glances when they were alone.
The situation was flagrantly, painfully awkward.
Of course they kept up the appearances in front of the crowd and in front of Vegeta, but they could tell the quicksilver-tempered almost-King was suspecting something was wrong with them. What made Kakarotto to wonder was why the blue-haired albino was always hanging around their ruler like hungry vulture around something that might drop dead in few minutes and the vulture's week's lunch was provided and the lunch didn't seem to mind...
His weird attacks grew more and more frequent and he was often forced to leave the room and the presence of other people for the mysterious attacks weren't temporarily dizziness spells anymore but full-blown nausea and sickness that brought him to his knees, sweating and panting. He didn't know how long he'd be able to keep this as a secret from his ruler, ChiChi and other soldiers.
Instinctively he knew that this 'illness' he had couldn't be cured by regeneration tank or a doctor of any kind and the medical staff would be just as confused as he was with what was wrong with him. Kakarotto only knew it was getting serious and becoming hazardous for his mission. What good he'd be lying sick on the floor, feeling like his heart was ripped out, while ChiChi was murdered and their plan would be flushed down the toilet. It was way too early for her to get killed yet...
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ChiChi sighed heavily and plopped down the sofa of Kakarotto's new apartment, now located closer to the Royal Guards' headquarters on the third floor of the palace's eats wing. Relief sagged her shoulders as he exited the room without sparing her a glance, his form rigid and poised like he was holding off an attack or trying to control his own body so he wouldn't do anything he might regret later.
Still this puzzled ChiChi.
The man was always so relaxed yet his sinewy body ready to defend and fight at all the time. Now, it seemed so to her, that he was a walking bundle of nerves stretched far too much for his health and he would only last so long... ChiChi shook her head and made herself more comfortable on the couch. After the incidence an unwritten rule had appeared between them. When they were alone in the quarters the living room was ChiChi's kingdom and the bedroom was his and they kept to themselves. It had already been a week...
To her chagrin and joy he still protected her from the crazy maniacs after Lady Piela like she was the real Piela and not a kitchen slave ChiChi.
Their earlier conversation still occasionally echoed in her head, the last they ever had to this point, and she couldn't help but wonder. She still hadn't forgiven him for slapping and knocking her unconscious and was waiting for an apology she might never get, but when she had woken up...
... a warm feeling surrounded her all over, soothing her in slow pulsating waves and she wearily opened her eyes hazily making out the color green. It was weird poison-coloured and it surrounded her all over. But she felt good and re-energized and better than in years. Focusing her black gaze the green haze faded into a detailed image of the medical quarters that looked green through the substance she floated in. Yes, floated and watched the empty medical treatment room through a glass.
A regeneration tank?
She had only heard of those things and dreamt of them after being beaten to the ground bloody and bruised, but she didn't expect colour green. A bleep sounded somewhere and the healing substance drained and the breathing mask covering her mouth and nose was automatically removed. Another hiss and the front of the machine opened and ChiChi stumbled out of it unsteadily and made her slip on the floor as she was still soaked in the healing fluids.
" Gah! Fucking stupid contraption..." she muttered getting up and wondering where the medics were. The whole area seemed empty and chilly. Looking down she noticed she was butt naked and was suddenly extremely glad there were no medics around. But who then put her into the healing tank...?
A faint snore caught her attention and she saw a figure slumped over the table, soundly asleep. A doctor maybe? Dressed in high commanders' attire? Hardly.
High commander? The only high commander at the moment was none other than Kakarotto. ChiChi resisted the urge to scream bloody murder! That man had actually healed after all he had done! ...Or maybe to hide something he had done to her while she was unconscious by healing her... maybe...? The evil in her mind told her nastily and she kicked it angrily far away from her thoughts.
Few hours earlier she might have believed it, but now she wasn't so sure.
He wasn't a man to do something like that. Kakarotto, despite being an asshole jerk that competed even with the prince, would never stoop so low. Besides he was dead faithful to Piela, ChiChi knew that for sure. He was mean to her but if he really were that mean he would have left her there. No one was allowed to enter the royal sideroom unless given permission by royalty so there was no fear of finding 'Lady Piela' beaten and bruised.
He put her into the regeneration tank. And to do that he must have undressed her... she blushed heavily at the thought of the handsome male undressing her. ' Okay ChiChi! Mind off the gutter and get some damn clothes before he wakes up and starts insulting you again!' She hurriedly dressed in the white hospital clothes she found and sat down to wait Kakarotto to wake up, to the chair opposite him.
Why he even was there? Why did he even stay?
She stared at the closed bedroom door. Under that man lay so many secrets...
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Kakaotto lay on the bed, inhaling deeply the air around him, recovering from another attack. He had duties to attend and prince to guard and ChiChi to look after and a rebellion to be stopped and the real Piela to worry about; he couldn't let this idiotic illness hinder him. And... his eyes snapped open in realization. He hadn't seen them almost in months... With a guilty look at the door he rose from the bed and quickly checked the surrounding area with his scouter. Not too many Saiyajins around.
Taking the device off he hid it carefully into his closet. He hoped no one would be so stupid as to assassinate ChiChi while he was gone. The day was way too hot for it anyways, he decided silently and opened the window. Quietly floating outside and then closing the window he then let himself drop down into the thick bushes decorating the palace walls. Fighting his way through the greenery and cursing whomever gardened these things should be and would be put to death for the lousy job. To Kakarotto's knowledge these bushes were supposed to be made of only green soft leaves and and branches, but these bushes had sharp spikes on them for Saruyan's sake and the vehemence that emitted from the plants was almost scary! Just what did the gardener use for fertilizer?
He made it to the border of palace grounds, feeling slightly distraught and scraped all over. Whoever though Vegetasei's royal gardens were such jungle and death trap? The former queen had wanted a garden and garden she had got and Kakarotto had some distant memories it sometimes being a beautiful place and safe place, but when the queen died no one cared for the garden anymore and it was upheld and maintained just for the sake of it existing. No one went there anymore.
(Expect the gardener Juunana, Kakarotto remembered now; the eccentric person indeed that always fussed about palace hall plants with various leaves always sticking out of his black hair and that watering can in his hand... If he didn't take care of the plants Kakarotto was sure someone would have killed just for the spite of it and for the honor of his death mother/queen Vegetas wanted plants to be around and stay green. The first flowers had wilted in few days and been replaced. After the procedure had been repeated more than ten times, they decided to hire someone to take care of the plants which in no sense was an easy taks as the palace was for the most parts Gothic, dark castle and green plants had to be everywhere. Even in the dungeons and all Saiyajin god help if even one of the plants died...)
And for a good reason too no one went there. Vegetasei had its dangerous jungles and even more dangerous deserts that could kill you in gruesome ways, but Kakarotto had just discovered the planet's most dangerous of them all: the royal gardens gone wild. Few plants that he thought he recognized as peaceful and benign wines had tried to strangle him. One of the flowers had almost eaten his hands and legs and the other plants were satisfied with only scraping him. Even the harmless grass had tried to hurt him. In general it was shaking experience.
Kakarotto took flying, far enough from the possible scouters and flew to the city joining many low-class Saiyajins and disappearing in the crowd. He was wearing a simple armour that could belong to anyone of the lower class and not many knew him by face anyway. Everybody had just heard of him. Kakarotto felt safe with that information and kept flying, taking aim of destination towards the equator of the planet, far away from the main capital city.
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ChiChi knocked on the door of the bedroom determined to end the horrible silence and looks between them. She didn't like him, but they didn't have to act like grudge-bearing children. No answer. So he was being stubborn about it but the black-haired woman had decided she'd be relentless with him and knocked again, louder. He still didn't answer.
Fine. If it came to that... She readied herself to kick the damned door to tiny sticks. They were gonna talk this through but she'd be damned if she uttered a word to him first! The door easily caved in under her kick and she expected and angry: whatta fuck are you doing bitch response sound n her ears. Instead she got silence. The room was empty. The bed was slightly rumpled and the high commander wasn't in sight and for the first time in a long long time she felt worry.
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Vegeta tapped his scouter impatiently the blue-haired genius close by. Why Kakarotto didn't answer his calls? The scouter was on and in a state that said the owner was wearing it, but his high commander didn't respond. Maybe it was a malfunction because the man was way too loyal to his ruler not to answer a royal call. He fiddled with his scouter trying to locate the man's powerlevel in the palace and to his utter surprise didn't find it.
" Well, your highness?"
" The fool's missing and not answering... weird..." he muttered to Bulma's question, now deep in thought. The transmission between scouters was limitless and you could to talk to another person form the other side of the Galaxy, but the powerlevel reading range was quite small and only very high powerlevels registered to scouters from a long distance. The prince frowned. The scouters couldn't detect or tell to whom the reading belonged so people were often forced to memorize certain powerlevels to recognize to whom it belonged and now there wasn't anyone with Kakarotto's reading in the area of detection. As Vegeta could recall this was not the first time his loyal subject had gone missing and could not be found. Later on he'd always appear from somewhere with a very good reason... or an excuse.
" PRINCE VEGETA!" A shrill voice sounded and the doors smashed open and both Bulma and Vegeta jumped. They were in Bulma's private lab and Bulma was just finishing the final treatment and telling him more about the extremely rare poison he had been subjected to and suggested that maybe Kakarotto's should know about this now after a week of keeping it secret.
ChiChi ran in. She was dressed in one of Piela's most regular attires: a white blouse shirt and black knee length skirt her flat shoes flapping against the marble linoleum floor of Bulma's private laboratory. Her hair was flying around wildly and her face didn't have any make-up, but an expression of worry.
" Kitchen slave? What---" Vegeta was cut off.
" High commander is missing! I saw him going to his room and then when I went to speak with him minutes later he was gone!" ChiChi explained frantically, " Vanished like Henki had banished him out of existence!" She finished with a frown.
" We know, wench," Vegeta stated calmly and clicked his scouter off his mind running a three miles a second.
" Your majesty... you think..." Bulma left the sentence hanging as she had came to the same conclusion as the prince himself. ChiChi looked confused and decided to wait for more information.
" This is not the first time he has disappeared like this..." Vegeta said to himself, his face carved of indifferent stone. Would his first-hand actually poison him? Betray him like that? Try to kill his own ruler? Was he working for the rebellion? He certainly had not been that surprised when the whole civil war had broken out...
" This has happened before... Bulma was it?" ChiChi asked from Bulma as Vegeta's face was beginning to remind the two women of a thunder storm that would wipe everything in its way. The albino only nodded and backed away from the prince taking ChiChi's arm and dragging her little farther away from the unstable almost-legal-ruler.
Vegeta didn't know what to feel! His most trusted commander of them all had betrayed him! He had shared his plans with him and the whole Piela thing... a hoax that he kept up and probably had given real Piela's location away days ago...! If they lost all those soldiers belonging to Piela's clan...! The rage slowly began to smoulder in his soul and heart, rising with each thought of the man that practically knew everything about the planet's defense, military, palace, war tactics, secret plans and techniques... their weaknesses... Someone he almost trusted like a... what? Something that he had utter belief in had...! Had...!
" There will be a hell to pay..." he whispered with a voice that contained such boiling rage and betrayal that made the two Saiyajin women shiver in fright.
" THERE WILL BE A HELL TO PAY!"
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Kakarotto spotted the place he was looking for and swooped down, and then landing gracefully on the ground. The comforting sounds of jungle and the heat that in the equator area was much higher that in the upper northern hemisphere where most of the Saiyajin's lived. Snow was absolutely unknown aspect on Vegetasei for the planet's normal temperature even at nights in winter time never dropped under plus fifteen Celsius degrees.
He was drenches in sweat and dirt from flying above the desert in the scorching heat, but he didn't care and he was mostly used to it anyways. Jogging through the impenetrable jungle with ease he soon reached a small clearing that opened into a huge plantation and trudged towards one place of it all...
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A/N: The garden? Oh the garden wasn't pointless at all...! Where is Kakarotto now? Almost everything I write has a meaning in the story... I've revealed too much already. JA NE AND REVIEW KUDASAI! The next chapter will be interesting... dun dun duu...
