Chapter Twenty-Five: And Then There Was One

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A/N: A real quick update for you guys. Like I said, this was originally part of the last chapter; I figured I might as well post it since it was basically done and I've already gotten eight reviews for the previous chapter.

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Hidden in the shadows of one of the destroyed buildings, a figure watched the fight with mild interest.

"It is nearly done," a second figure said as it appeared next to him.

The first observer nodded slightly and said, "Master's plan was...."

"Brilliant," the second finished without missing a beat.

Both wore identically evil grins as they watched the final moments of Gotenks and Akira's battle.

ooo

Gotenks ran forward, his fist raised, "Fine, no more talking then. We'll finish this right now!"

Akira stood his ground, bracing himself for the attack. A second later the two warriors were locked in mortal combat, all strategy, all showmanship, and nearly all thoughts of defense were completely abandoned. They just pounded on each other as hard as they could; the winner would be decided by who could absorb the most damage without succumbing to his injuries.

As the battle raged on, Gotenks' attacks became more desperate as he realized that his time would be over in less than a minute. He swung at Akira's head as hard as he could, but the young man saw it coming and ducked. The momentum from the punch threw Gotenks off balance, creating an opening that Akira immediately took advantage of.

The young man drove his knee into Gotenks' stomach, clasped his hands together at his side and swung his fists up into the fused warrior's face sending him flying into the air. Akira sped past him, turned and powered up a ki blast.

"This ends now!" he yelled as he fired the wave of red energy at the dazed fighter.

The blast didn't have a lot of power in it, Akira didn't have much to give, but it was enough. Gotenks took the blast in the chest and was sent plummeting to earth; two bodies hit the ground at the same time.

Trunks and Goten were in bad shape; even from a distance Akira could see that. He landed a short distance from them and then powered down when he saw they were no longer in their Super Saiyan Four form.

Trunks looked up at him weakly, "I guess this is the part where you finish us off."

Akira didn't think he could finish them even if he wanted to, but at the moment that wasn't something he wanted to be advertising, "I didn't want to fight you, I still don't. I know you think you saw me, but it was someone else, I really didn't kill anyone. Please, let me help you...once we've all recovered we can find the person who really did this."

The young man took a step forward to help them to their feet, but Goten pulled a metal pole off the ground and swung it at him. Akira couldn't get his body to react fast enough to avoid the attack; there was a crunching noise as the pole smashed into his arm and then Akira's right arm hung limply at his side.

The young man grimaced in pain and grabbed his broken arm with his other hand, "Fine," he said with a scowl, "if you still don't want to believe me, then I'll do this on my own." Akira turned, wobbly floated into the air, and headed out of town.

Goten and Trunks watched him go in disbelief.

"Why didn't he kill us?" Goten asked.

"Maybe he's still messing with us," Trunks replied, "He's been doing it for a long time...why would he stop now?"

"Yeah, but what's the point? I mean, everyone else is dead, why leave us alive?"

Trunks didn't have an answer; he just laid his head down, closed his eyes, and tried to focus on healing.

ooo

Akira had barely made it to the suburbs when the injury and fatigue finally caught up with him; he fell from the sky and landed in the middle of a small street. The young man lay very still as a small pool of blood began to form under him.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been there when he heard a voice call out, "Hey kid; hey, wake up."

Akira's eyes cracked open and he looked up at an old man who was kneeling next to him; the Saiyan opened his mouth to speak, but little more than a nearly silent whisper escaped his lips and even that was unintelligible.

"Are you alright kid?"

Akira glanced at what he could see of the rest of his body. His arm was broken, he was covered in cuts that were bleeding heavily; dark black and blue bruises covered his body, he was pretty certain his nose was sitting at an unnatural angle, one of his eyes was nearly swollen shut, and he probably had a concussion.

"Never felt better," he croaked with a weak smile.

"Try not to move, I'll call you an ambulance."

The young man could already see the looks on the faces of the doctors and nurses when they saw his tail, he'd be lucky if they even bothered to try to heal him before they started asking questions and calling scientists. In his weakened state, he probably could be subdued by enough equipment and military personnel; the idea of being poked and prodded wasn't appealing. On top of that he wasn't very far from a city that had just had a large portion of it reduced to rubble; it wouldn't take a genius to put two and two together.

"No. No ambulance, no doctors. I just need to rest..."

"But you're...I mean, just look at you," the old man said as he fished a cell phone out of his pocket.

"Please...please don't," Akira pleaded.

The old man seemed torn, he looked from the bleeding young man to the phone and then back to the young man. "Are you sure?" he asked hesitantly, clearly thinking that Akira was probably a little on the crazy side.

"Yeah, I know it looks bad, but I really just need to rest for a little," the young man took a deep breath and then forced himself to sit up, gritting his teeth against the pain that surged through him. "I'll be fine, I'm a quick healer."

"Well, you look like you'd better hurry up," the man told him, still looking unnerved by Akira's gruesome appearance.

The young man chuckled, and then wished that he hadn't as pain shot up his side from what was probably a cracked rib. He wiped blood from his eyes and felt his nose; he frowned, it was pretty crooked. Akira took a deep breath, braced himself, and then pushed his nose back into place with a loud crack. Blood immediately rushed out of his nose and down his face. The old man looked a little green as he saw the injured warrior try to wipe the blood away with the tattered remains of his shirt.

"Here," the man said, handing Akira a small bottle of 'natural spring' water.

"Thanks," the young Saiyan said as he took a large swig from the bottle and then used the rest to wash out some of his nastier looking wounds.

The old man watched the Saiyan curiously for a moment before asking, "So, what happened?"

Akira smiled sadly, "I had a, um...disagreement...with some...friends."

"Nice friends," the man commented dryly.

"It wasn't their fault, they were just confused."

There was a long moment of silence before the man said, "If your friends did this, I'd hate to see what an enemy would do to you..."

ooo

It had taken several minutes, but Trunks and Goten had finally regained enough strength to move away from the battle area; it hadn't happened a moment to soon either, as police and rescue vehicles began to arrive on the scene to look for survivors. Guilt and regret settled over the two Saiyans as they realized that their failed attempt at revenge had probably resulted in dozens of deaths.

"Do you think he was telling the truth?" Trunks asked as they stood.

"We saw him kill Kumo, didn't we?" Goten replied.

"Yeah, I guess you're right..."

The two stood in silence for a moment and then Goten said with a hint of confusion in his voice, "Still, it's odd that he didn't try to kill us...I mean, he just walked away when we were at his mercy...and someone who could look like Akira wouldn't be the weirdest thing we've ever seen."

Trunks looked at his friend, his own confusion clearly written on his face. Goten had a point, after everything that they'd been through, everything that they'd faced, something that could change its shape wasn't too far fetched.

"I think there's another possibility," a familiar voice said from behind them; the two Saiyans turned in surprise as they saw Akira step out of the shadows, looking surprisingly better than he had when they'd last seen him. "I think it's just kind of fun to play with your head right before I kill you."

The young man looked at Goten, "You know I think I'll miss Kumo, he was a cute kid...a little on the annoying side, but, well, I guess that's not a problem anymore, is it?"

"You monster!" Goten screamed as he rushed forward followed by Trunks.

The murderer smirked as he used his right hand to backhand the enraged, dark haired Saiyan into a wall, then with lightening fast speed his foot shot forward and slammed into Trunks' knee. There was a sickening crunch and Trunks fell to the ground with a cry of pain, his left leg bent the wrong way. The young man stepped over Trunks and walked calmly to the hole that Goten was lying in.

"Was Valese a good lay?" he asked with a toothy grin, "she seemed kind of pretty, I'm betting she was. I thought about enjoying her, you know, when she was lying helpless before me, telling me she'd do anything if I would spare her."

Goten threw a weak punch, but his fist was caught before it had even traveled half the distance to its target. The young man gave the older Saiyan's arm a quick twist, breaking the arm and then brought his own fist down on Goten's elbow, slicing clean through. Goten screamed and grabbed the stump as he fell to the ground.

"Now where was I?" the young man asked, stroking his chin as he thought, "Ah yes, like I was saying, your pretty little wife said she would give me anything if I would spare her. I thought about taking her up on the offer, but the thought of touching something that has been defiled by a Saiyan was just too revolting. So instead I broke her arms and legs, then sliced open her stomach, pulled out her intestines...and watched as she slowly bled to death."

Tears of grief and rage rolled down Goten's face as he looked up at the young man, his eyes filled with hate.

The evil man smiled down at him and then glanced over at Trunks who was staring helplessly at them. The murderer placed a finger against Goten's forehead, grinned at Trunks and then fired a ki beam.

Trunks cried out and then squeezed his eyes shut against the sight of the back of Goten's head exploding.

"And now we end it," a voice whispered in his ear, "I took your mother, your father, your sister, your woman, and all of your friends. And now that you see that you are nothing, the Saiyan race will become extinct and the universe will breathe a sigh of relief. Good bye son of Vegeta...and good riddance!" A second later, another ki blast exploded.

"Only one left..."

ooo

"Oh no..." King Kai said quietly. His voice was barely above a whisper, but it somehow carried over all the other conversations on the planet.

"What? What happened?" Gohan asked anxiously.

"They're gone," King Kai replied without looking up.

Much to the kai's surprise, no arguing or yelling broke out this time. The Z Fighters just stared at each other in disbelief. There was no one left to resurrect them, if such a thing was even possible at this point, and there was seemingly no way for them to get any sort of revenge. Even Vegeta seemed resigned to his fate at this point.

ooo

Akira's head snapped around as he felt two ki blasts.

"Oh Kami..." he whispered. The blasts felt like they were in the area that he had left Trunks and Goten. He couldn't sense the two Saiyans, but that didn't mean anything, he hadn't been able to sense them before; they were too weak and he was too tired for him to focus on them very well.

The young man tried to stand, but was restrained by the older gentle man who had been watching the apparently confused youth like a hawk.

"Hey kid, you need to rest...actually you need a doctor, but we'll get to that later."

"What I need is to go," Akira said, "I have to help my friends, they're in danger."

"Huh? What are you talking about?" the man's hand remained on Akira's shoulder, holding him down.

The young Saiyan took a deep breath, and then stood, nearly knocking the old man over at the same time.

"I'm really sorry sir," Akira said softly, "Thanks for the water, but I have to go right now."

"But..." the old man started to say; his voice failed him as a feint white aura appeared around Akira. The Saiyan slowly rose into the sky and, after a small wave to the gawking old man, took off toward the city.

'Please tell me I didn't fail them again,' Akira thought as he flew with all the speed he could muster.

A few minutes later his fears were realized when he spotted the first body. The young man landed next to what he thought were the remains of Trunks, both of the older Saiyans had been wearing dark pants, so it was hard to tell for sure with the mutilation of the head.

Akira glanced around and quickly located Goten's body. This one was easier to identify, as only the back of the head and part of his arm were missing.

"Damn it," the young man whispered as tears welled up in his eyes. He'd done it again, he'd failed to protect his friends, and now they were dead. 'I should have stayed with them, I should have forced them to let me help them,' he thought angrily. Deep down he knew that there was little he could have done for them, he'd been too weak to force them to do anything after the battle, but that didn't keep the guilt from flowing over him. In his eyes he as good as killed them by leaving.

As he stood with his head bowed, tears and blood flowing, he heard something move just behind him. The young man whirled around and his eyes grew wide.

"Hello brother," a cold, familiar voice called out.

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A/N: Well, unfortunately that's where we have to leave off. For those of you who were really hoping to see Goten and Trunks survive: sorry. It had to happen; now everyone is dead, and no one knows that it wasn't Akira that killed them. I'm also really glad that everyone seemed to enjoy Gotenks in the last chapter; I was really worried about him being either too serious or overly dumb. I don't know how long before the next chapter, I honestly haven't even started it (though I have a very rough outline in my head). The next chapter should have some answers in it...maybe they'll even make some sort of sense. Hopefully I'll be able to get it out before the end of the weekend, but I don't make any promises. Thank you all so much for the reviews, your encouragement and occasional criticism really keep me motivated.

UGotProblems: Well, if I can't convince you otherwise, I'll just say 'thanks.'

Chris: It's true that Gohan often went to a new level when he was really pissed off, but at this point he hasn't been doing much training so his power level isn't where it needs to be to ascend.

Courtney: I'm glad that you've liked the story so much. I'm honestly not sure if or how I'll bring those that have been killed back. That isn't to say that there won't be a happy ending, I'm just not sure if I can come up with a way for them to be resurrected.

Toni the Mink: I'm not completely sure how the fusion power level thing goes either, that's why I had Goten and Trunks worn down before they fused (theoretically limiting Gotenks' power).

Donkeykong27: I'm glad you liked Gotenks. I kind of figured that Super Keio-Ken with a SSJ4 would be a pretty large boost, but really I just needed to put the two of them at near equal footing and that was the only way I could think to do it.

Nadz: I'm glad you liked the fight. Writing Gotenks was annoyingly difficult for some reason.

Rejhan: I'm really glad you liked the fight, it was one of my more work intensive scenes, I rewrote several large chunks of it more than once.

Draco the Destroyer: Well, I can pretty much garentee you that Goku won't return physically. In the last story he sort of showed up during Goten's big fight, but it was more of a vision thing. If he does make any sort of return it would have to be like that to keep the GT continuity going (not that I'm really concerned about that). I'm glad you liked Gotenks; he was annoying to write, but everyone seems to like him, so I guess I did okay. As for Akira and Pan getting married or even getting back together...it's sort of hard to say. At the moment, she's dead and hates him, so they have some pretty big hurtles to get over before they can think about marriage. We'll just have to wait and see what happens (even I don't know exactly what's going to happen there).