Disclaimer: My lawyers are suing Santa and my mother for not getting me the ownership of Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball/Z/GT for Christmas… Meanwhile you're all invited to try my new Jacuzzi… XD.
Ninth Chapter
Once everything had been properly cleared up, Videl insisted that everyone sit down for breakfast.
There were enough waffles, pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon to feed only three saiyajins, considering Videl wasn't expecting Goten to come along with Trunks, Bra and Marron, and that she didn't know that supposed 'cousin' of hers was half-saiyan too. However, after getting an unexpected phone call Gohan had said he had to leave for an unscheduled meeting with his co-workers, and Videl informed that since Goku'd decided to go off to Uubu's village earlier that morning to tell everyone there he'd be spending a week back with his family until Christmas, the ration of food he had surprisingly left untouched would be enough for all three of the new visitors.
"I can see how you're related to Videl-san, now," Marron told Hikari as she sat in front of her at the table. "Both of you share the same black hair and blue eyes" she added smiling.
Hikari smiled back, running her fingers through her raven locks self-consciously.
"Thank you"
Trunks, on the other hand, was considering Hikari with an air of scrutiny.
"Apparently Videl and her father lack those silver strikes, though" he noted, looking at her hair intrigued "Neither do they have quite that eye colour…"
"You're right," agreed Marron while regarding her own image as it was reflected with extraordinary clarity on Hikari's gaze.
"Does anyone else in your family have eyes like that?" Trunks asked, a bit curious.
"My mum does," Hikari said. "...Only hers are a deeper blue"
"And your dad?" Bra unexpectedly wanted to know.
Hikari briefly glanced at Diana, who was resting on her shoulder.
"Err, his are black… charcoal black" she answered awkwardly.
Trunks and Marron looked at her surprised.
"Well that's quite peculiar" Trunks commented, "Then you should have inherited a dark shade similar to your mother's coloration, not a lighter one"
Hikari once more was left speechless, so she opted to just shrug, not wanting to reveal much more than necessary.
That was when they heard Goten enter the conversation. "She's come here to have a good time, Trunks, not to hear your theories on Genetics. Who cares what colour her eyes are? What matters is that they're beautiful" he said, winking at Hikari from the other end of the table, where he'd been forced to sit since Pan and Bra, who were listening in intently, had taken the two next seats beside his childhood playmate.
Marron groaned and Trunks just rolled his eyes at his friends' absurd choice for a pick-up line, but Hikari inwardly wished that either of them would punch Goten, 'cause her brother's attitude was starting to get on her nerves.
However, the two simply ignored him and Marron continued the conversation.
"By the way, I never got to introduce myself," the blonde told the brunette in front of her. "My name's Marron Chestnut, my father used to train with Goku-san at Master Roshi's when they were little, he and my mother have known Gohan-san and his family for a long time"
"My pleasure," the mischievous time-traveller answered politely. "I'm Tsukino Hikari"
Marron nodded.
"'Light of the Moon'..." she translated "…Was that on purpose?"
"Yeah...May be…" giggled the raven-haired guest.
"And I'm Bra!" the turquoise haired little girl piped in, making the three smile.
"None's been able to forget you no matter how hard they tried, Little Sis," Trunks interjected, making his little sister stuck her tongue out at him.
"I'll tell Daddy you're being mean to me," Bra replied, making her older brother be the one to groan now.
"You're such a dishonourable tattletale, you know that?" he complained while eyeing her darkly.
"I don't care"
The girl from the future was watching the sibling-quarrel go on amusedly, along with Marron, and even Goten, and all were trying very hard to restrain from laughing out loud.
"You little─"
Needless to say, they were failing miserably. Seeing Trunks get in an all-out argument with his younger sister by thirteen years was just too much to bear. Goten almost fell off his chair, bringing the lavender-haired prince's attention back from the petty fight.
Trunks flushed lightly when he noticed they were all so poorly containing their laughter, thus the argument with Bra was postponed for a more opportune moment when they didn't have witnesses.
Then he would give that spoiled brat a piece of his mind as regards her unacceptable behaviour in front of strangers.
"So," Goten started as he sat back on his chair and put a huge chunk of bacon inside his mouth, making Marron sweat-drop and Trunks grimace.
"Ten- nii, please don't talk with your mouth full," pleaded the blonde.
Goten grinned at her apologetically.
"Sorry, Ronnie"
He proceeded to chew his food properly and swallow it before resuming the talk.
"Anyway" he continued once he was done, "Videl said your mother was named Serenity? How come we never heard of her?"
"That's because Aunt Serenity moved away the summer before I met Gohan" Videl told him as she suddenly came up from behind him to serve more bacon on his plate "and took 'Kari here away with her, so that's why you guys never got to meet her until now"
Once that said, the wife of Gohan departed, making her way to wash some dirty dishes.
Hikari sighed. When she caught Diana's eyes she winked as if saying 'See? I've got it covered'.
That didn't help easing the cat's fears, though.
"That makes sense," Trunks opined, brining her back to the subject.
"Yeah, I understand now," Marron assented, turning to Hikari. "You must have been very young then, weren't you."
Hikari stared at her blankly.
"Huh? Yeah! I guess I was"
Bra looked up at the brunette then.
"How old were you?"
The older girl stammered.
"Err"
However, Bra seemed let go of the subject soon enough, because she immediately started saying something else.
"You mum's name is Serintity?" she sighed dreamily "That name's so pretty! I wish I had a name like that!"
"Me too!" echoed Pan before emptying a glass full of cocoa.
Hikari couldn't help but smile at Pan and Bra's childlike cuteness, and didn't bother to correct her misspelling of her mother's name.
"Auntie 'Kari what's your daddy's name?" Pan asked out of the blue.
Uh Oh…
What on earth do I say!?
"Err, well, you know…" she mumbled as she tried to come up with a plausible answer, hoping desperately that Videl would make a pause in her washing of the dishes to answer for her once again.
She didn't.
I guess I just found out the lunar mind meld's limit, she grumbled, non-amused. Honestly.
Then she came up with an idea.
"Oh! His name's Kakaro─...," Hikari's voice died in her lips and, as she realized what exactly she'd been saying, she immediately grew white as a sheet; what the hell was she doing!?
She hastily tried to correct her huge mistake, "I-...I mean! His name's Gu- Gungnir…! Yeah..., Gungnir!"
"Excuse me?" Trunks blinked, looking appalled, "did you almost say something else...?"
"I mean, I mean his last name's 'Kakaro'! Yeah, Kakaro-Wood, go figure! A double surname! ...I just get the two confused sometimes, wha haha! It's because when they got married, he decided to take Mama's name!" she smiled and giggled to cover for her enormous slip-up,"That is why my last name and his are both 'Tsukino', just like mum..."
Trunks was still frowning at her non-the-less.
Damn it.
The older boy began to say something else, but Bra's sudden chants beat him to it.
"Serintity and Gungnir! Gungnir and Serintity! Sereintity and Gungnir! Gungnir and Serin─" the child began repeating excitedly, again and again and again, until a gruff voice cut her off.
"Bra, stop it!" the older son of the Briefs unexpectedly snapped at her, losing his patience with the little girl even though his eyes were still trained on Hikari.
Bra froze at the harshness in his manner; her brother never talked to her that way before, never. No matter how angry he grew at her.
It'd been a long time since she had heard the voice of her brother dearest take on that tone with anyone, and the fact that he'd just used it with her filled the young Halfling with great anguish at that moment. Pan put a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder, but Bra paid her no heed. She looked up at him, instead; silent and teary-eyed, yet he didn't turn to look back.
His eyes firmly set on the secret time-traveller, the older demi-saiyan was scritinizing her still.
Marron, oblivious to the sudden change of mood and the little girls' distress, was repeating the two names they'd all just heard.
"Gungnir and Serenity…" she turned towards Trunks, "those names sound really fancy and uncommon, don't you think? I'd like to have a unique name like that myself"
"Yeah..." Trunks replied, but his now piercing stare was still trained on the black-haired visitor.
She couldn't help a small shiver.
What if he suspected anything?
Hikari risked a glance at Trunks from under her half-closed lids to discern his expression.
What she saw shoot a wave of panic all throughout her body…
His eyes told her he already did.
-0-
Crystal Palace - Future
"Where the hell did that Feather-duster Head get into?" Vegeta Jr. grumbled to himself, annoyed that he couldn't find his partner-in-crime anywhere.
Finally he made out the silhouette of Goku Jr. sitting on the first steps of one of the Earth Palace's white marble broad stairs, his elbows resting on his kneels while his head was on his hands. He didn't appear to be in a very chirpy mood.
Vegeta Jr. approached the brooding figure calmly and took a seat next to him on the stairs in silence.
Junior didn't even raise his head to look at him, so Vegeta patiently waited for him to say something.
He didn't.
A fresh breeze was starting to rise, ruffling Junior's ebony black bangs and crazed pointy spikes. The deafening silence was beginning to make the princely stubborn hybrid uncomfortable, which was why he decided to break it.
"I take it didn't go too well," Vegeta concluded.
He got no answer.
After a moment, Vegeta decided to try again.
"Wanna tell what happened?"
Once more, there was no response.
This time, Vegeta Jr. scowled. "I take that as a 'no', then," he grumbled.
Just when he'd started to think he wouldn't get anything from his brooding partner, a disheartened voice spoke. "Vessie was there"
Vegeta raised an eyebrow.
What does that have to do with anything?
He figured he should humour the depressed mood of the other and at least pretend some resemblance of interest.
"Sailor Vesta?"When the other hybrid slowly nodded, he continued. "Did she catch you unawares?"
The younger one shook his head.
Then why do you think I care that you run into her? Vegeta wondered to himself exasperated, but resisted the urge to blow up on his fellow demi-saiyan.
"She... was in Ceres' room?"
The other nodded slowly again, still not looking at him. What's with the pathetically foul mood, Kid?
"What was she doing there?"
Junior thought for a while. "Can't remember… It wasn't important"
Vegeta's eyebrow twitched visibly, but he opted to leave it at that. "Did anything happen between the two of you?" he tried to question, as he shifted in his seat to find a more comfortable position. The younger male deeply sighed, his eyes focused on the horizon ahead.
"I told her"
Vegeta glanced at him from the corner of his eye. "Excuse me?"
"I told her what I feel"
The flame-haired one didn't like admitting to not knowing things, but this time there was no way around it.
"And... that is?" Vegeta definitely was getting tired of this questions-and-answers game.
"I love her"
…!
For the first time in his life, the demi-prince almost fell down the stairs. Whatever Vegeta Jr was expecting him to say… this wasn't it.
He just stared at the other one, perplexed… …For the longest of seconds...
END TO THE NINTH CHAPTER
A/N: There's a reason behind the whole "Gungnir" name. Search it by google if you please, and see what you find out (winks). Please don't forget to review. I don't even mind getting flamed, but I wanna know if you like where this story is headed.
If you don't, I won't be able to do anything about it, unless you tell me.
Sincerely,
Jay.
