Peripheral Reality

Chapter 10

Goku could see Broly's posture changing gradually as he sensed the threat in the air, becoming defensive, almost fearful, his tail so tight around his waist that it must have been cutting off circulation somewhere.

He snarled at the monster, showing the full length of his teeth as rage pulsed hot through his veins.

"Why." the word dropped like a hammer blow, too harsh for even a question mark to stand beside it, "Why did you do that to Kakarot?"

Broly's lip curled and his hands clenched into fists, "I had to; to teach him his place. I -"

"Did you have to?" Goku snapped viciously, cutting him off, his voice shivering with fury, "Did you have to bring him so low that he couldn't even stand up on his own? Did you have to break his arms and legs and twist his tail into knots? Did you have to leave him unconscious and soaking in a pool of his own blood?"

"He wouldn't have obeyed me otherwise." Broly growled.

"You'd be surprised," Goku said, his voice surprisingly softer in this response; thinking of how gentle and eager to please the young blonde was. He grit his teeth and took a fierce step towards the taller Saiyan, "No, Broly. You just enjoy dealing pain, don't you? You loved to make him scream and struggle, you loved to break him, is that right? Isn't that right?"

Broly had been backing away slowly as Goku advanced, but now he stopped. He'd run into the wall behind him.

"What do you want from me?" he hissed, "An apology? What?"

Goku spat at his feet disgustedly, "Hardly." He bore down on the involuntarily cringing brute, lashing his tail in palpable anger, "You need to be punished for what you've done."

Broly laughed, but while the sound was meant to be cruel, it sounded slightly feeble as his eyes darted subconsciously for an escape.

"You don't have the nerve," he muttered, trying to stand straight.

Goku's tail stilled. It was Broly's only warning before a blur of movement and a crack split the moment of silence, followed instantaneously by a scream. Broly's eyes were wide with fear, the arm Goku had just snapped still in its executor's unforgiving grip. Goku sneered and gripped the limp arm higher up, crushing another bone and eliciting another scream. He then broke Broly's wrist over his knee, cracking the arm down and listening to the wordless, frantic protests of his victim as he strained to escape his grasp.

He snarled and turned Broly around, slamming his face against the wall and hearing his jaw break, wrenching the ruined arm behind his back and twisting it. Broly was trembling, unable to escape and spewing a stream of profanities through a mouthful of blood.

"What did you do to Kakarot, then?" Goku whispered menacingly, taking the free hand Broly had braced against the wall in an attempt to break away and gripping his forearm. "Destroy his arms?" He twisted the undamaged arm around in its socket until it was dislocated, hearing a shrill sound of agony escape Broly's lips, "Break his bones?" He bent the forearm back until – with a sickening rip – the bone burst through the skin with a spray of blood. Broly was beyond screaming, his vocal cords strained to the point where he could barely produce sound; harsh, disturbing grunts and gasps rasping between his teeth, "Shove his face against the floor?" on the last word, Goku threw Broly down on his stomach, watching his neck snap back dangerously and certainly painfully.

He stood over Broly's heaving back, taking his tail absently, almost gently, in his hand, all but caressing it, "Did you hesitate for even a moment..." he began quietly, stilling his hand near the tip of the shivering, furry appendage. He heard Broly groan a strained sound of denial, knowing what was coming, "...Before you snapped his tail like a twig?" His hand clenched, and he pinned the bristling tail against the floor in his fist, bringing his boot down hard on the delicate vertebrae, shattering them beneath the force. Broly's ki flickered in agony, and he didn't have enough air to produce a scream, his limbs jerking spastically. Goku felt Kakarot's rapist's energy dwindling, almost fading away as his consciousness slipped slightly.

"No. You. Don't!" He grit out, enraged, slamming his foot into the monster's spine harder with each word, twisting his tail viciously and breathing hard between his teeth, "You will not pass out now after only enduring this much, you weakling! Kakarot is ten times stronger than you if you're giving out this early; you will stay awake and aware until I decide to put you out of your misery! Got that?" He lit a ball of yellow ki in his hand, the energy hissing as he laid it over the base of Broly's tail, singeing fur and knowing that he was sending white-hot agony up the monster's bruised spine. Broly convulsed, coughing blood and writhing to try to escape the torture.

He managed somehow to gather enough willpower to speak, choked and shaking, "Just...just k-kill me now t-then..."

"No." Goku growled, the yellow ki licking at the fur of the mangled tail in his grasp. "Not until you have a damn good idea what you've done to Kakarot all these years. You don't deserve the mercy of death just yet."

With that he snagged a hand in Broly's shaggy hair and forced his head back, searing a path up from his tail to the nape of his neck with a scorching trail of ki, carving the spitting energy into his back, melting the skin in places. Broly's entire frame shook violently, and it took Goku a moment to realize he was sobbing, tears escaping and pouring down his face as Goku kept his head bent back.

"I'm s-sorry..." Broly's voice was ragged and saturated, and his words were little more than a whisper, "I'm sorry... please..." his eyes squeezed shut, "...Just g-get it over with... just kill me..."

Goku's fingernails dug into the skin beneath the fur of his tail, eliciting a cringe and another shaky sob. He contemplated ignoring Broly's pleas and continuing his punishment a little longer. The bastard hadn't been nearly as brutalized or humiliated as Kakarot had been, and Goku's lust for revenge wasn't quite satisfied...

But if he tormented a person who literally begged for death... he would be just as much of a monster as Broly was. He wasn't here to deal pain, he was here for justice; for Broly to see what he had done and suffer for it... and he had.

"I'm not like you," He spat with conviction reverberating through the words, "I'm not a monster. There will be no escape from the guilt of what you've done... in Hell." He gripped Broly's jaw with one hand, the back of his skull in the other, "I just want you to know one thing. Kakarot is mine now; he was never yours. He belonged to me before you even laid a hand on him, and he wasn't as innocent as you thought he was when you forced yourself on him the first time." He met the wide, gradually comprehending eyes of his victim for a moment.

"You -!" Broly began furiously, but he didn't get to finish. Goku wrenched his head to the side sharply, snapping his neck and killing him instantly.

He stood straight with a resigned sigh, wiping Broly's blood off his hands. Stepping aside, he shot a cursory glance at the limp, lifeless form of the monster he'd destroyed. Broly's eyes were still wide open, glassy and empty, staring blankly at nothing; his mouth was slightly open, lax and still outlining whatever curse word he'd been about to snarl before his demise.

"You can't do any more harm now. I think you got off lightly, but the end result is the same. A worthless rapist dead for his crimes... Ruining Kakarot's perfectly good floorboards with his filthy blood."

Flicking his tail with finality, he pointed a finger at the corpse splayed on the floor, shooting a bolt of ki at the empty shell of Broly and incinerating it without a trace. All that remained was a burned section of floor, and a clotting stain of blood. He made a mental note to either strip the floorboards from this room, or get Kakarot to relocate to a new house. The taint of Broly would never fade on its own.

He wished it could have been Kakarot to deal to Broly what was dealt to him; he wished the true victim of this mess could have delivered the final blow... but he was glad Broly was gone either way. He couldn't have allowed a monster like that to live, and he had never intended to. The only way Broly could have reconciled for his sins would be with his life, and that was just what he had paid for them with.

"Pity," Goku muttered to himself, lingering in the doorway as he departed, "I'm sure Kakarot would have liked to pay his respects... And spit on the body of his fucking mate."

TBC

((Pathetically short chapter, but it's past midnight, and I figure it's about time I wrote this scene. The next one will be longer and fuller, I promise.

Reviews keep me alive! Feed the author!

Love you guys,

-Shinsun))