Becoming a Family
Chapter Ten: History Lessons
Disclaimer: Characters and premise belong to Akira Toriyama, I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit angst.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead.
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse --
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
-- William Butler Yeats
Easter, 1916
"What makes you think I want to see a squalling brat? Especially Kakarrot's?" Vegeta grumbled as he followed Bulma into the bright, anapestically airy hospital. Without Gohan's all but out of control ki beating against his senses Vegeta was much more conscious of his surroundings and he decided he didn't like them.
Bulma cheerfully ignored Vegeta's grumbling. She juggled carrying Trunks in one arm and a bouquet for Chichi in the other. The simple fact that Vegeta was there was proof enough that he was curious about the newest demi-Saiyan. "That's the room," Bulma hinted with a jerk of her head.
Vegeta considered his options then took Trunks to free up one of Bulma's hands. It did the least to dispel the fiction that he was there under protest. Bulma opened the door and Vegeta grudgingly followed her inside.
Gohan sat on the edge of his mother's bed. The boy looked nervous and delighted as he held his new baby brother under his mother's watchful eye.
"Congratulations!" Bulma exclaimed. She plunked the flowers down on the night stand beside Chichi's bed and leaned over the bundle in Gohan's arms to get a better a look. "Oh wow! He looks exactly like Son-kun."
Chichi smiled, pleased and tired. She nodded, the resemblance was truly uncanny. She took it as a reminder that a part of her husband would always be with her.
Gohan looked at Vegeta and flushed with embarrassment. "Vegeta-san, I'm sorry about yesterday and thank you for taking care of me," he said. Then he smiled. "This is going to sound strange, but losing the fight really made me feel a lot better."
"I'd be happy to beat you up again any time," Vegeta replied with a smirk.
"Can I hold him?" Bulma asked as she relieved Gohan of the baby.
"Certainly," Chichi said wryly.
"What's his name?" Bulma asked.
"He's Goten," Gohan volunteered. "I didn't think he be that little."
"He'll grow," Chichi promised.
"I know that Mom," Gohan said indignantly.
Bulma carried Goten over to show him to Trunks. "Trunks, this is Goten-chan. You two are going to be best friends, just like Goten's dad and I were."
Trunks twisted around in his father's grasp to get a better look at the pink squirming thing his mother was holding. Then he made an disappointed sound. It didn't look like it would be much fun to play in his opinion.
"When he's a little older Trunks-chan. Trust me," Bulma promised. She settled the baby back into Gohan's arms. Goten yawned and stretched then a fuzzy brown tail snuck out of the blankets and wrapped itself firmly around Gohan's wrist.
"You didn't have his tail removed?" Bulma exclaimed in shock. Vegeta was also staring at the child's tail with the look of one who suddenly found himself faced with an unexpected dilemma.
Chichi shrugged. "Both Gohan and Goku had tails when they were younger. It was so cute when Gohan would suck on the end of his tail when he was a baby." Her gaze soften with nostalgia, both for the little boy who'd stolen her heart when they were both just children and for the days when her family had been complete and she'd believed that peace on earth would last. "I have no idea where their tails disappeared to. I suppose Goten's will vanish at some point as well but until then..."
"But Chichi! What about the moon?" Bulma asked.
"What about the moon?" Chichi asked cluelessly. "Has someone blown it up again?"
"You don't know?" Bulma asked.
Gohan fidgeted nervously. "Um, Mom, about my tail. Piccolo-san sort of um, well ripped it off after I, well, um turned ."
"You did what?" Chichi shrieked.
"How can you not know about the Oozaru transformation?" Vegeta snapped. "When a Saiyan who's tail is intact looks at the full moon they transform into the Oozaru state. It was one of the things that made us feared throughout the galaxy."
Chichi took Goten back from Gohan and cuddled him close. "He looks so much like Goku when he was little," she said stubbornly. "It was never a problem with either Gohan or Goku."
Vegeta stared at her in disbelief.
Bulma chewed her lower lip. "Um, did Goku ever tell you about why you shouldn't look at the moon? About the monster and how his Grandpa died? Chichi none of us ever had the heart to tell Goku that he was the monster who squished his grandfather."
Vegeta watched the a look of indecision settle on Chichi's face. Human sentimentality made little sense to him but he was beginning to recognize it when he saw the signs. Vegeta hadn't been angry when he realized that Bulma had Trunks' tail removed. He'd wondered about Bulma's decision but he'd never been angry about it. In a way it was actually a relief. He knew Trunks would become a Super Saiyan when he was older and so the power of the Oozaru transformation would be irrelevant for him. Vegeta occasionally found himself intently missing his tail like he would any lost limb but Trunks would never remember having a tail to miss. And with his tail removed there was no concern about how the transformation would take Trunks.
It occurred to Vegeta that he was the only person left alive who knew the cost the Saiyan people had paid for the power of the Oozaru transformation. He was the only one who could inform Chichi of what might happen. "A pure blooded Saiyan male has a twenty percent chance of dying the first time they transform," Vegeta said.
Chichi's eyes widened fearfully. She hugged Goten tighter and pulled Gohan close as well. Chichi summoned a doctor to tell them she'd changed her mind about not having Goten's tail removed.
Bulma leaned against Vegeta. "Why were your people willing to tolerate such a horrible risk?" she asked quietly.
Vegeta just looked at her.
"For the power," Bulma said after a moment, in answer to her own question. "Still, how could it have been worth that kind of a mortality rate? The Infant Missions, this. How did the Saiyans justify losing so many kids?"
For a time Vegeta didn't answer. Then he decided that Gohan should know a little about his father's race. And if he was going to have to talk to Bulma about his past it would be easier if she knew something of his people's history. "Everything the Saiyan race had we took by force and we held it the same way," Vegeta said. He spoke to Bulma but modulated his voice to catch Gohan's attention. "I've heard humans say they inherited this planet, that it was given to you. Vegeta-sai was not a gift, we took it."
"From the Tuffles," Chichi said disapprovingly. "King Kai told Goku about how the Saiyans destroyed the Tuffle civilization back when Goku was training to fight you."
"They got what they deserved," Vegeta's voice was harsh.
"Just because they weren't strong enough to defend themselves-" Chichi began.
Vegeta's eyes narrowed. He looked at Gohan. "Boy, what do you know about the Tuffles?"
Gohan swallowed nervously. He wasn't supposed to know anything at all about the subject but he'd overheard his parents talking one night. Both Chichi and Goku had agreed that it wouldn't be good for him to know that his father's race had been evil. "Mostly that they were from the same planet as the Saiyans. They were physically smaller but they were more technologically advanced and more numerous so they didn't worry about the Saiyans, who were, well, aggressive."
Vegeta snorted with a bitter sort of amusement. When Gohan paused he gestured for the boy to continue.
"The Saiyans attacked the Tuffles and there was a long war, which the Saiyans eventually won. The Tuffles were destroyed." Gohan shrugged "But I don't know how accurate that is. Dad was also told that Vegeta-sai was destroyed by the planet's Kami because the Saiyans well, because they were evil."
"What!?" Vegeta exclaimed angrily.
"I don't know why King Kai told Dad that," Gohan said sadly. "It was Frieza who destroyed Vegeta-sai."
Vegeta sneered. "He was afraid Kakarrot might feel some allegiance to his own kind." Vegeta was surprised by just how angry he was. Kakarrot, and by extension his brat, had been manipulated to reject the entire Saiyan race. "The Tuffles didn't fear us, that much is true. They looked down on us as animals too stupid to take revenge when they stole our people for their experiments. They though we could be used as their weapons. They thought they controlled us."
Bulma gapped at Vegeta. She was stunned that he was admitting to a weakness without having it dragged out of him.
Gohan wondered at the shear magnitude of hate in Vegeta's voice, aimed a people who must have been dead generations before Vegeta's birth.
Chichi remembered late night conversations with Goku during the months he'd spent in the hospital before leaving for Planet Namek. When he'd first told her about being Saiyan she'd known it bothered him. It was the only time she'd ever know Goku to try to deny a part of himself. And she'd hated the Saiyans, because of them her son and her husband had been taken from her without warning for a whole year. When they came back both Goku and Gohan had shadows in their eyes that hadn't been there before.
But when Goku finally came home from space the shadows had been gone. Goku had been at peace with himself again and his attitude toward the other full-blooded Saiyan currently living on the planet had been openly friendly much to Chichi's annoyance. She was glad Goku was happy again, but she didn't understand what had changed and she wasn't ready to just forget about the pain the Saiyans' arrival had caused her family. She hadn't wanted to admit that Vegeta had to be the reason Goku didn't feel the need to deny being Saiyan anymore.
"We wouldn't be controlled." Vegeta bit off his words in a staccato voice full of anger and bitterness. "We took what they began and finished it. Then we came for them. We smashed their cities and the technology that allowed them to believe that they were better than us. My people wanted nothing of the things they thought to enslave us with."
Bulma remembered Yamcha telling her of being sent back to a world of smashed cities littered with skeletons.
Vegeta grimaced. "Then we realized that we were dying." He glanced toward Goten. "A twenty percent mortality rate was an improvement and it always hit the females hardest."
"In Frieza's army they looked down on us because our written history only went back fifteen generations." Vegeta's entire posture radiated injured pride. "They joked, but with the remnants of the Tuffles' technology we traveled to the stars in less time than it takes most races to come up with the steam engine. Then we taught the old races to fear us." Vegeta gave Gohan a sardonic grin. "We had to, to survive. Your father's race wasn't evil, brat." He glanced at Trunks. "I might be, but it's not genetic."
"Vegeta," Chichi said quietly. "Thank you."
Goten's tail was removed without complications. Still the doctors chose to keep Goten and Chichi in the hospital for several more days just in case and just because Goten's vitals were so different. Gohan continued staying at Capsule Corp so he could be closer to his mother and little brother.
Meanwhile Bulma set a date and got serious about planning her wedding.
"Mom, I said no," Bulma exclaimed when she saw a stack of invitation sitting at her mother's elbow. There were easily three times as many invitations as were needed for the Z-fighters.
Trunks continued playing happily with his food. Gohan checked the clock to see how long it would be before visiting hours at the hospital. Vegeta gave a small snort of annoyance at the latest cropping up of the ever present discussion. If he'd known how much fuss getting married entailed he might have hesitated longer before proposing it.
"But what about your friends from school?" Bunny argued. "And the people in your lab? And some of your father and I's friends have know you since you were a little girl, they'd love to come."
"Too bad, I want a small wedding. The people in my lab have been terrified of Vegeta ever since the incident when my secretary tried telling him he couldn't see me without an appointment. My high school friends became ex-friends about the time Trunks was born. And they all make my friends uncomfortable. I don't want anyone who's going to stare at Piccolo or Dende or shriek when they see people flying. You know that idiot Satan has everyone associating ki usage with Cell and his so-called 'tricks'," Bulma rolled her eyes as she made quote marks in the air. "And what if Lunch sneezes? That's exciting enough around the initiated."
"Alright dear, you've made your point," Bunny conceded. "Which Lunch did you ask to be your brides' maid again?"
"The brunette," Bulma replied. "It seemed more like the sort of thing she'd enjoy."
"And have you decided on a best man yet?" Bunny asked Vegeta.
Vegeta turned to watch Bulma's reactions. "Trunks," he stated.
"He's a toddler, he'll eat the rings," Bulma protested. "How about Gohan, you like him."
"Me? Like Kakarrot's spawn? You're delusional."
"You do too."
"I do not."
"I'm sitting right here," Gohan said.
"Yeah? So?"
"Do too like him."
"Do not."
"Children," Bunny interjected pleasantly.
"Piccolo, he doesn't annoy you," Bulma suggested.
"Of course he does, he's a Namek."
"You're being difficult," Bulma sighed.
Vegeta tried a 'who me?' look but he couldn't have managed to look innocent if his life depended on it. He settled for a smirk that declared he knew he was and he was enjoying it.
"Kuririn?"
"No."
"Oolong?"
"You're grasping at straws. Trunks."
It wouldn't be so bad if not for the conversation before hand when Bulma had explained the whole notion of a 'best man' and Vegeta had made it abundantly clear that he didn't want to imply any sort of respect for any of the Z-fighters. "Alright, Trunks. But we're moving the date back a few weeks." Bulma declared.
"Why?" Bunny asked.
"So I can build a time machine and fetch the Trunks who is not a toddler," Bulma said.
Vegeta sat back looking pleased with himself. He could have asked her to find a way to bring Mirai-Trunks back from the start but it was more fun when Bulma thought she was being clever.
"Now Vegeta, you're certain there's nothing you want in the ceremony?" Bunny asked.
Vegeta smirked at Bulma. "I want her to put 'obey' back into her vows."
"No, you'd try to hold me to it."
"And I was beginning to think there might be something redeeming about your culture after all."
Bulma stuck her tongue out at Vegeta. Trunks giggled and pointed.
Vegeta nodded to the child, "Yes, she does look funny," he agreed.
"Vegeta, seriously. It's your wedding too," Bunny pressed.
"Hn," Vegeta grunted. 'Why were females so fascinated with marriage ceremonies?' he wondered. Dr. Briefs had stated that he was glad Vegeta had proposed then sensibly dropped the matter. The woman and her mother only seemed to talk about two things anymore: the wedding and Kakarrot's new brat.
"Why would I have anything to contribute to this ridiculous ceremony thing of yours? It had no parallel among the Elite of my world," Vegeta stated. He hadn't really wanted to tell them that he was willing to completely disregard his own culture for Bulma but they wouldn't leave him alone without some sort of answer. "I'm not some sentimental third class like Kakarrot."
"Do you always have to insult my dad with that third class stuff?" Gohan asked quietly.
"Facts aren't insults," Vegeta declared. "Given that Kakarrot never returned from his Infant Mission I'm being generous in calling him a third class."
Gohan rolled his eyes.
"First class," Vegeta gestured to himself. "A direct descendant of the Legendary, born with a power level of over one hundred. The Elite were the second class. The power level requirements were the same as for Royalty but there were no considerations around bloodline, you were either strong enough or you weren't. For females the lower limit for Elite status was a power level of seventy-five at birth. Any healthy female was automatically granted at least third class status but males born with a power of less then twenty were required to prove their worth by completing an Infant Mission." Vegeta's tone took on the dry tones of one reciting the most boring of history lessons. "Most of third class Saiyans attained a power level of at least a thousand after reaching adulthood. If they surpassed a power of 3000 they had the option of testing into the Elite Class."
"By the time I fought Kakarrot he would have easily tested to the higher ranks of the Elite," Vegeta admitted. Then he added "Even so, if he'd returned to Vegeta-sai he probably wouldn't have sought out Elite status. Retesting was only done at an individual's request and such requests were almost never made."
Gohan looked puzzled. His mother was always eager to have him test into higher grades and his father had always strove to be the best in martial arts.
"The third class fought in squads," Vegeta explained. "Testing up meant leaving your squad behind And that didn't happen unless the squad was already dead."
Gohan's eyes lit up with understanding.
As Vegeta explained the Saiyan caste system to Gohan random bits were coming together for Bulma. Simply being born into the royal family wasn't enough to be considered royalty on Vegeta-sai. Only a small percentage of the population were Elite but there were Elite bloodlines that had lasted for the whole of their history. They had gotten around the law of averages somehow. There was nothing comparable to marriage among the Saiyanjin Elite.
"Saiyans didn't practice monogamy!" Bulma's eyes flashed with outrage.
Then the rest of it fell into place and she stared chuckling. Saiyans didn't practice monogamy, at least not among the Elite and there had been a deficit of females. Vegeta was jealous and possessive of her, and he had no interest in other women. Their relationship wouldn't have been considered normal, perhaps not even acceptable on Vegeta-sai but he'd proposed to her without prompting and without any sort coercion.
"Oh Vegeta, I love you," Bulma declared.
Vegeta realized that she'd figured it out and scowled at her. "If Vegeta-sai still existed I would have been expected to produce children with several promising females to ensure that a viable heir to the Legendary's line was born," he confirmed.
"My grandparents weren't married?" Gohan looked scandalized. Then he glanced at Trunks and blushed furiously. "No offense Bulma, Vegeta."
"None taken," Bulma said waving it off.
"Bardock and Ko'n had two brats together," Vegeta said carelessly. "They probably had some sort of arrangement. I don't know if the third class formalized such things. But they were more prone to forming bonds because of their relative weakness, they needed each other."
"And what about the Elite who weren't Royalty?" Bulma asked. It seemed a little strange to her that the culture had been so sharply divided. From what Vegeta had said the third class had apparently formed close bonds which where only abandoned upon death, while the upper castes had scorned such things. Bulma wondered how the Elite class could have chosen to isolate themselves from each other when it was clear to her that Vegeta, at least, hadn't lost the ability to form close emotional attachments... or the need for them. Bulma wondered how much Vegeta knew about Saiyan culture from first hand experience and how much had been learned in lesson taught to an exiled child.
"I remember Nappa negotiating for an heir," Vegeta said. "I think the woman was one of my father's concubines. I don't think they ever met in person and the child wasn't Elite. That was the last I heard of it."
Bunny shivered. "That sounds so cold."
Vegeta looked at his son. "It was necessary," he said. To himself he continued 'We never could have sacrificed so much without being as cold as space itself but it was futile. In the end we were left with nothing.' He'd made sacrifices of his flesh and soul until he had felt like an old tree stump, hollowed out with rot. It as only in finding things that he would never give up; Bulma, Trunks; that he had started to feel alive again.
They'd sacrificed so many of their children for power. Almost half of the Saiyan children born after the war against the Tuffles began had died as children, died because their bodies couldn't contain their power or because they lacked power and were cast aside. It had made sense to him until his Trunks was lying dead at his feet. After that there was nothing, nothing at all that could be worth his child's life.
Had they been wrong to hang on to their power with such tenaciousness? If they'd given up the Oozaru transformation they wouldn't have watched forty percent of their children die the first time they saw the moon. But, of course, they didn't watch and that was how they had been able to stand it.
Still, how could they have they have given up the power? How could a person risk caring about anything if they didn't have the power to keep what they allowed in their hearts? If his ancestors hadn't seized the power that they'd discovered they would have had nothing, would have been reduced to the Tuffle's mindless, will-less cat's paws. Because he hadn't had the power to stop Frieza Vegeta-sai was gone, his race was dead.
When Vegeta surfaced from his thoughts he and Bulma were alone in the kitchen. "You okay?" Bulma asked as she squeezed his hand. "You sort of spaced out for a moment."
Vegeta's expression twisted with self-disgust at the thought that he'd let Gohan see the current weakness in his mind. But the only thing he could do about it was forge ahead and repair the flaw.
"Vegeta?"
"Your father said I had to make sense of my memories but all that they tell me is that I question the things my people and I have done to try to survive. We culled the unfit children so that our race would become stronger as a whole. But I wasn't angry that you removed Trunks' tail, I told Chichi the risks knowing what her choice would be. I was supposed to have been the Saiyan king, but I sabotage-"
"Did it ever occur to you that you're right and they were all wrong?" Bulma interjected forcefully.
"And I should become a cheerful moron like Kakarrot?" Vegeta snapped.
"No!" Bulma said quickly. "But you don't have to be your father either. I just want you to be you."
"I told you I don't like killing outside of battle but I've killed children younger than Trunks at Frieza's request."
"He would have killed you if you hadn't, don't argue, you don't have to tell me that for it to be completely obvious. You didn't have a choice."
"When I was young I only killed civilians when I absolutely had to. Later it didn't seem like it was worth the effort to avoid it. What did it matter if I killed them or if the clean-up crews did it? They all died in the end. Shortly before I came here there was a planet, no one would have wanted it, not after the damage from their civil war. Nappa and I stopped anyway, just to stretch our legs after a few months in the pods. I went looking for the best fight the planet had to offer. We overthrew the standing government and liberated the losers from their war. They called us heroes and it made me angry that I could save their people when I hadn't been able to save my own." Vegeta looked at Bulma coldly. "So I blew up the planet."
Bulma's mouth hung open silently.
"The only sense I can make of my memories is that they're telling me it would have been better to have refused Frieza and died before letting myself become so much like him."
"But you changed back," Bulma protested weakly.
"Did I? Those idiot reporters are no threat to me but they annoy me. The only reason I don't kill them all is that it would disturb you. I didn't stop Cell when I had the chance because it felt good to boast of my superiority after the glorified toaster defeated me. Trunks died because I was over confident and wanted to salve my wounded pride."
"I sit in judgement of my ancestors' choices when I can't even trust my own judgement. I can remember that I once held some regard for the lives of others, but now? Now, when I don't kill I find myself trying to figure out why I haven't."
Author's notes: The Tuffles come up both the anime for DBZ and in GT but never in the manga. Both times we get an account that's unreliable. Some elements of the story that King Kai tells Goku about his ancestors are contradicted by what is learned about Frieza later. Then Babi claims that the Saiyans and Tuffles didn't originate on the same planet and that the Saiyans conquered the Tuffles while under the rule of Vegeta's father, but that doesn't make a lot of sense with what Kami showed the Z-Fighters of Vegeta-sai. Obviously the anime's creators added in filler that was later contradicted in Akira Toriyama's work, but because all the information about the Tuffles is given second hand instead of being an outright continuity issue (unlike the movies) it just turns the people who delivered the information into unreliable narrators.
Babi's version of history is something he was programed with by the bitter losers of a war, saying the Saiyans were from another planet could easily be twisting history to make the Tuffles into completely innocent victims. King Kai had just met Goku and didn't know him that well beyond knowing he was Earth's only chance against the Saiyans and that Goku was Saiyan himself, so King Kai might have felt some motivation to ensure that Goku would look at the Saiyans as his enemies. Still telling Goku that his entire race was so evil that the gods themselves thought they were deserving of genocide seems a bit harsh. I'm going with the theory that Babi's story is Tuffle propaganda, while King Kai told the truth about the Tuffle/Saiyan conflict, except he omitted anything which might have led Goku sympathize with the Saiyans.
The poem I included at the first of the chapter is the last stanza in Yeat's "Easter, 1916", the poem is about a group of Irish insurgents who captured the General Post Office in Dublin and held out for several days before surrendering. Sixteen of them, including the two leaders, Pearse and Connolly, were executed. The first and last bits "Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart", and "A terrible beauty is born" fit Vegeta so well IMO.