Kakkhan: Saiyan Dimension Keeper

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball/Z/GT, but I do own everything else. Ha!

Chapter Thirteen: Synchronization

Though her room had that oppressive silence that commanded her to sleep, she couldn't. Being here in a room that reminded her so strongly of Earth but had equally strong touches of the Demon Dimension—it was as if she was looking at a representation of what her life could be, an amalgamation of two aspects, instead of what it was, an Earthling semi-stranded in the City.

She was not entirely stranded because there was another Earthling here—and thinking of sleeping under the same roof as he—indeed, the same corridor—didn't that make her blush? She had been trying not to think about that for hours already.

Energized all of a sudden, she threw aside the covers and slid out of the bed. Padding quietly to her door, she tiptoed across the hallway, down the stairs and into the living room. She fell onto the nearest couch with a sigh; instantly she felt like falling asleep. Her mind protested; she found herself thinking again about Kakkhanadori, his house, and the fact that she had claimed the room next to his quite unintentionally.

Thoughts of this matter inevitably presented her with the conversation she and the Saiyan (what was a Saiyan, anyway?) had had before bed. The memory of his acceptance again brought tears to her eyes; she instantly clamped down on them, telling them no, they would not fall. She'd done enough crying already. She cringed at how emotional she'd been all over Kakkhanadori, even if he hadn't seemed to mind. Hadn't he said, "Thank you?" for trusting him?

She was grasping at straws. She had been at a weak point last night, that was all there was to it. She was eternally grateful to Kakkhanadori for being there for her, but she had to be stronger. She needed to be stronger. She vowed to herself that she would not cry on Kakkhanadori or anyone again, but instead would try to care for them, to return the efforts they had put into her so faithfully. For too long had she depended on everyone else; it was now time someone depended on her.

She drifted to sleep finally with this thought overriding in her mind, lulled at last to a sense of peace with this determination.

:-:-:-:

Catherine didn't say anything out of the ordinary to him in the next morning, but he had a feeling, a not-quite sense of Foreknowledge that something was different about her. She stood straighter, held her head higher, and seemed much more relaxed. He found himself enjoying this subtle change in her, even as much as it made him wonder—and he had plenty of time to wonder, for the Human made good on his offer of occupying his house for the entire summer after all.

The beginning of the week after that first night was the most complicated, with he scaring the living daylights out of Catherine by his state of shirtless undress, and the latter inadvertently paying the former back in full when she hurried out of his bathroom with only a towel on the next day. It was the middle of the week when they worked out a specific schedule, not only for bathroom and bed times, but also meal times, TV room times, and office, alone, and together times.

For instance, Kakkhanadori refused to be disturbed any time he was in his training room, but other than that he generally was available except when explicitly stated otherwise. Catherine turned out to have an earlier bedtime that he did because of the summer courses at the Schools she'd registered for. He promised not to disturb her with his activities (his office was next door to her room) and to go to bed at a reasonable time (which Catherine insisted upon). They agreed that they would wait for each other at the HTC for lunch.

By the end of that week, they had settled somewhat into the routine of living together. Though it was not entirely usual for two members of opposing genders to live together and not exist in a relationship, the Demon Dimension did not object to the living arrangements at all; indeed, it seemed instead to ignore them. He knew better, but it was such that he did not actually care if they were frowned upon or not.

One night into the new routine, however, he had gone to bed shortly after Catherine did, on account of an inexplicable exhaustion resulting from more than an extremely frustrating day at work. He'd fallen into bed with a vague sense of dread, a self-premonition trying to warn him...

He'd barely braced himself before the nightmares attacked. Tumbling images of battle, blood, and slaughtered bystanders, Fay, Druid, and Human, struck through him, as his own sword had in many of these scenes. In fact, he glimpsed many flashes of that very weapon, though he never saw it actually perform its necessarily ugly work, only what it left behind. After many of these scenes occurred he was not surprised, only vindicated, when, as another flash of metal turned his head, he perceived himself.

If the sight of himself now was what others saw him as in battle, then it was little wonder he'd earned his reputation of soullessness. No emotion flickered in the eye sockets shrouded by the black hair of the stone-still warrior facing him. The coat the other wore remained absolutely still even when the other himself moved, slowly, to reveal his katana.

"Murderer," the warrior called him. His voice contained no feeling, but the word stabbed into him forcefully, almost causing him to step back. His feet did separate when the swordsman next named him as a weakling.

"Unworthy," he said next, "of any kindness by others. The Human in particular."

Here, hearing that, he drew the line. He was a murderer, and he was weak, but the Human was not to be brought into this. This was between him and the warrior within.

Stepping into stance, he drew a breath. Saying nothing, his persona copied him, his face as blank as ever while his sword disappeared into its scabbard.

In three swipes of his Spirit Blade, he had thoroughly decapitated the other version of himself. He looked dully at the gutted corpse with his face upon it, and thought: This is how I am going to die. It was so clear to him in that moment he had no choice but to accept it as fact, though his mind and heart would have liked to think otherwise.

He bowed his head. If he was so unable to accept his fate as thus, he truly was unworthy.

"Why would you be unworthy?" someone asked him. Cool fingers brushed his bangs aside to lay themselves on his forehead. Ki flew from him into these fingers; he permitted this only because he thought it was punishment. He realized that his negative energy was lessening too late; she was withdrawing already at this epiphany.

"Don't lose faith in yourself, Kakkhanadori," the person told him. "You're the strongest person I know, but there does come a point where being strong is too much. You have to let yourself just be sometimes. Take it from me; I know." She touched his hair again, but he didn't respond. She sighed.

"Kakkhanadori, I hope you will let me be here for you when you need me. I told myself I would grow stronger so that I could repay you your kindnesses, but being strong isn't just part of that. I need to accept myself, my strengths and weaknesses, and do the best with them that I can in order to live usefully in my world." She leaned in close; he had to shut his eyes to avoid seeing her face.

"None of us can do that alone."

Her lips touched his forehead; then she retreated, leaving behind the scent of the meadow, and disappeared from his dream.

With her disappearance, calm finally washed into him. The dead warrior at his feet, who had been staring at him with his eye sockets, turned his head. He rose slowly to his feet and began walking away, his form blurring the more he walked. His surroundings became lighter, both in atmosphere and in color.

His light core was destined to be ignored once again, however, even if he did allow it to briefly, very briefly, shroud him lovingly for a time.

:-:-:-:

Catherine seemed pleasantly surprised to see him the next morning, sitting calmly at the table while pans on the stove were gently heated. Upon her appearance, he folded away the reports he'd been reading and bid her good morning.

"Good morning," she replied, eyeing him unabashedly. He smiled slightly at her curiosity, but refused to say anything more.

It wasn't as if Catherine needed any prompting. "Isn't your leaving time supposed to be dawn?"

He nodded. "I decided to stay a while today."

She seemed dubious. "Will they—Lady Fate, excuse me—allow this?"

"Yes," he said simply. "As long as I travel through Time to make up for what I've lost and don't do it too many times."

"Then—pardon my rudeness—what's the occasion?"

He chuckled at her impatience. "I just wanted to tell you something."

She blinked at him. "What? Is this about last night?"

"Yes," he said, watching her alarm and her embarrassment grow. She stumbled through an apology before realizing that he didn't want that (judging by the amused smile he knew he had on his face), then, finally, asked him what he wanted to say.

Looking directly into her face, he pronounced, clearly and certainly, "Thank you."

Obviously gratitude had not been what Catherine had been expecting; she gaped as a fish does. Gradually she blushed again, but not from embarrassment.

"You're welcome," she answered. They smiled at one another in silence, then, anticipating awkwardness, he inquired:

"Want pancakes for breakfast?" He gestured to the pans on the stove.

Catherine was bright enough to know what the pancakes really were: A more tactile way of saying thank you. So she smiled gratefully at him for changing the subject and yet not, and agreed to pancakes for breakfast.

He ended up having to take Catherine through Time with him in order for her to be on time to her classes.

:-:-:-:

Kakkhanadori was stricken by nightmares several more times over the next few weeks. Each time, she was on hand for him, but each time it grew progressively more difficult to leave him. In sleep he looked relaxed like no other time of the day. She'd heard that people looked like babies when they slept, but if that were true, then Kakkhanadori bucked the system as much as always.

Every time she felt him relax after draining his negative energy (and giving it back to the Dimension, which could always use more ki no matter how it was classified), she felt like she could safeguard him from the dangers he faced—which of course she couldn't. Still, it was how she felt; she couldn't change that even if she had wanted to.

Still, it wasn't like the perception that she could actually keep Kakkhanadori safe was the only thing that kept her at his bedside. She felt more in tune with him at this time than any other time; this, more than anything else, soothed her enough to fall asleep again once she returned to her room.

One nightmare, however, was particularly stubborn and took more than ten minutes to calm Kakkhanadori down. When he did, she was startled all at once by the shape of his face, how his eyes and eyebrows seemingly flowed into his nose, which in turned spilled out into a delta around his mouth, the mouth that was an islet near the hill of his chin. She stared, fascinated, at his mouth and the lines of it; she barely noticed how close she'd come near it until she had touched it with her own.

Even then, it didn't occur to her immediately what she was doing, what she had done. Her eyes flew open when the thought formed; she drew back with a jerk and clapped her hands over her mouth. Kakkhanadori mumbled something indecipherable, but, as she glanced at him, he only shifted a little and fell back into sleep. Gigantically relieved, she hurriedly slipped from the room and raced downstairs.

"What have I done?" she asked herself in horror. "Oh, Gods, I hope he doesn't find out!"

In her panic, she was unable to sleep for some time. As a result, Kakkhanadori found her asleep on the living room couch, apparently shivering from the morning cold because she had not thought to bring a blanket with her. She watched him anxiously for any sign that he knew what she had done, but it seemed luck was on her side this once. She told herself never to do that ever again, ever, and even pleaded to Lady Fate in Kakkhanadori's shrine to help her.

In the meanwhile, she and Kakkhanadori went out often to various places like Los Sueños Dorados, Life's Games, even Niger et Candidus, the Vampire bar, on a memorable night. Once they visited the restaurant where the quintet had celebrated her homecoming. She'd thought then that it felt like a date, at the restaurant (they were celebrating her birthday), but she'd summarily dismissed it as wishful thinking.

Still, sometimes she caught Kakkhanadori staring at her, his dark gaze steady if also inexplicable. She told herself not to worry about it (after it, it was Kakkhanadori), but inside she couldn't help but wonder if he knew about the fading vestiges of her anxiety.

If so, he didn't mention it.

:-:-:-:

She smiled at the panic of the Lady Ki Breaker. Humans were sometimes so amusing in their behavior towards others. Unfortunately, She couldn't just sit and study the behavioral psychology of Her City Residents...

She had more nightmares to organize.

:-:-:-:

Carrying the precious pendant through the dimensional portal, he Knew that this would be the last he would ever see of it. The crystal winked at him then, as if sensing his thoughts and attempting to reassure them, but it failed. This would also be the last in a long time that he would come to this dimension, he sensed, which meant that he would only be able to monitor the effects of the pendant's appearance in this world when he re-entered it, whenever that time may be.

That, and what the crystal both contained and symbolized, made him reluctant to part with the pendant. He reminded himself that the time had come to part with it, that, really, he should have given it away long ago. It had been selfish of him to hoard it all these years, when there were obviously other uses for it than for his own comfort.

Even knowing all of this, even when he had reached his destination, he still hesitated. It was not until he looked up into the sky that his ache eased a little.

"Sir?"

The timid voice belonged to the child whom the crystal was bound for. He turned away from the winking heavens onto the brown-eyed brown-haired boy standing a ways from him, carrying a long wrapped package and looking frightened.

"Yes?" he answered gently, making no move to hide Tapheth's sword at his side. The child swallowed, but, impressively, remained brave.

"A-are you lost? May I direct you somewhere?"

He studied the other indifferently. "As a matter of fact, I am lost," he said. "Could you show me to the western end of this forest?"

The brown eyes grew even wider. "Y-yes, sir." He trembled. "Right this way, sir."

The boy led him off of the trail to his right, up the hill of leaves to another trail, one definitively less traveled. They turned left onto this, in the direction he had been traveling, then curved to his right and ended in a cliff face. Brown Eyes showed him a small niche he could just fit into, told him "after you come out of the cave, turn left. You'll be in the west woods."

"Thank you," he said gravely. He reached out the hand that held his crystal. "As payment, please accept this." The pendant winked at him a final time. "I suggest you hold onto this for as long as you can. Nothing will happen to you if you lose it, but your actions will not necessarily have the same effect upon the rest of the world."

As Brown Eyes stared at him fearfully, he climbed into the niche. Sure enough, when he emerged from the cave, on his left were the dreaded western woods. These would hide his trail.

He would visit his brother's grave when he returned home.

:-:-:-:

'Kakkhanadori?' she called out into the empty air of the called person's house. She did not receive an answer, but InuYasha's form flowed into the living room behind her.

'He is not here, Lady,' It barked to her while she laid her materials down in the corner. 'He is in the Prennan Cemetery.'

'The Cemetery?' She looked at Inu quizzically.

'Yes.' The inu padded closer. 'Would ya like me to take you to him?'

'Would he mind?' Kakkhanadori's privacy always counted before her curiosity.

'Very likely he would not,' Inu said, red eyes whirling. It paused. 'If it was you.'

'What?'

Inu refused to answer. Instead It nudged at her knees, moving her backwards out of the house. 'Inu!' she cried, but It continued to herd her out of Gaits Lanaid. As she always did whenever she entered or exited the Dimension Keeper cul-de-sac, she had to marvel at how different the view of the City from Tenna's apartment and from Gaits Lanaid were. One provided a view of the City at all times, available whenever you wanted. The other was just like opening a door onto a fantasy land, beloved but ever-changing all the while. She always seemed to find different sights of the City whenever she passed out of the wrought iron arch of the entryway—

The City blurred. Well, that's new, she thought, blinking. She had never City-zoomed without Kakkhanadori before—

As if his name was a password, the City blurred even faster. She began to grow dizzy; Inu leaned against her waist to hold her up. To help, she closed her eyes until she felt the dizziness and the internal pull fade.

'Open your eyes, Lady,' Inu grumped. 'I can't very well lead you if you can't see me or where you're going.'

'You could, if I were blind and knew what I was hearing,' she teased. Inu scowled.

'No one respects me,' It muttered in a tortured voice. 'I knew it.' It growled at her before she could respond: 'Let's go, Lady.'

The dog akuma led her into an array of trees, which she abruptly realized as the same as those next to Demonic Parks. She had no time to voice this thought, for Inu set a fast pace, and, when they had reached their destination, her eyes became engaged in something else other than the familiarity of her environment.

Beyond a wooden gate—ancient and worm-infested—stood Kakkhanadori, his back to them and his head bent. His customary coat fluttered slightly as she stared at him—

He turned.

:-:-:-:

A/n: Ahh! No, Kakkhanadori, don't turn! Don't turn, you dummy, don't TURN!

Allati: (Looks at SP weirdly) What are you going on about, authoress?

Why, the cliffy, of course! What is Kakkhan going to do, now that Catherine has been revealed? The suspense is sure to kill the readers!

Allati: If you say so...

That is, if they don't kill me first.

Allati: That's better...

I offer the sneak preview as a peace offering! Of course, it means nothing to you whatsoever, so it's useless, but it's the thought that counts, right?!

Allati: Not really...! (Shouts after running Panther in panther form)

:-:-:-:

SNEAK PREVIEW OF: Confessions

Observing that Catherine's door was ajar, he softly knocked. When he received no answer, he slid the door open further, stepped in, and lightly touched Catherine's shoulder.

:-:-:-:

Thanks to lpgohanfanatic and Lov3the3vil for reviewing!

Bye,

TheShadowPanther and Allati, from AASN

AASN; Writing is what we do for you at AASN. Enjoy.

Updated 5.21.08
(I'm going to be a year older tomorrow! Aieeeee!)