Blue Roses

Trunks ran. He was frightened, stuck in a game of cat and mouse with that beast! She tried to seduce him, and he rejected her over and over. As beautiful as the machine seemed to be on the outside, all she was to him was a monster. She seemed confused at first, and then offended, and finally she unleashed fury upon him. He ran.

Something so odd was happening in his world. He could not escape the feeling that, above all else, none of this was supposed to have happened. And then, something odd happened. Despite all of the jealousy he felt on behalf of his father, Trunks considered for the first time in a very long time Son Gokou. Perhaps, as his mother seemed to have maintained throughout time, if he had lived...

If his father had lived, long enough... if that team, that special elite team could somehow have come together in time for the attack of the androids, then the world would be saved. Millions of lives... his life. His mother's life.

Trunks looked behind him. She had either let him go or lost him. It seemed unlikely that she'd given up, but they were unpredicable. Everything was about fun and games to them. They were harsh and cold, without emotion or the ability to comprehend the extent of their destruction.

Everywhere around him there was garbage. Trash. This world was a lonely one. It seemed desolate, without hope for itself. Trunks sad down as rain began to fall gently from the sky. It was almost as though something in the sky decided to cry for him. He tried to will tears, or any emotion, but as he considered the events of the past few months, all he could feel was a numbness.

Was this what it was to be Bejiita?

He rarely thought his father's name these days. Maybe he should have been thinking about his mother and her rescue, and maybe he should have been thinking about Son Gohan, but he felt such confusion inside that his thoughts made the decision to turn to Bejiita. He wondered if he would be proud of him. Love him, even. He wondered what Bejiita would have said about him. How he would have felt about him. If he was a bother to him, after all. He felt that he knew so little about his father.

You're the man of this house.

And yet he wasn't. He constantly felt that men that were not his father were controlling his life, no matter how inadvertently. Gohan surely had feelings for Bulma. Trunks could tell, in the smiles that he sent her. In the way that he was so dedicated to her rescue. Trunks never really got to talk to Gohan about the topic, before his death, but his love for his master and dearest friend made it hard to protest even though the prospect of the two together felt very shattering to him.

In his mind, his mother belonged to him, and to his father alone.

And yet over and over again men attempted to take her from him. Not only Gohan. Gokou in his own right was a sort of threat. Mother had kinder things to say in Gokou's direction than she did of Bejiita. She mostly spoke of Bejiita's pride, and his strength. But no, Gokou was strong and intelligent and a brilliant fighter. He resented the perfection of this machine, this Gokou. And he came to almost think of Gokou as a machine.

He wondered what it was like to have Son Gokou as a father.

At least Gohan had a father.

Trunks wished he had a father.

He grabbed his head. Then, he emitted a cry most unpleasant to the birds around him. In the darkness, in the rain, it seemed appropriate. Trunks thought of Juuhachi. And of sex. He suddenly felt under-developed in that right. He considered mostly his mother's relationships. He acknowledged his mother's beauty, and his grandmother's, and Juuhachi's, but it was never in any sort of sexual way for him. Juuhachi was and always would be a monster to him. Nothing could change that mark, not flawless skin, not icy blue eyes.

He wondered if he would have had a girlfriend, in another world. If, like his mother, he would have dated around often and loved many people. Frightened in that metal animal's grasp, Trunks could barely take the thought of that perverse creature taking advantage of his mother, as Juuhachi had tried with him.

He should have tried to save her.

Trunks began to walk. He walked until his feet felt numb, cold in the darkness. He had no direction, he didn't know what he was looking for.

And then, he saw it.

He let out a yell. It was peircing, and he felt his dignity vanish, and nothing mattered to him at all. And he felt his rage consume him. His skin was on fire. He was pure energy. He looked down at his hands, they were glowing. He looked around, confused. Then he looked at the body littered on the floor. Like the toy that they broke, they gave him no consideration or care whatsoever.

The most dangerous game Gohan would ever play, and he had finally lost. His face was particularly bloody. He cringed, and didn't know why. It was as if by looking at the carnage he could hear the battle cries and Gohan's pain.

The death of Earth's greatest hero lent hand to the birth of a new age. Trunks powered down. Finally, he had become a Super Saiya-Jin. He knew it wouldn't be enough, Gohan was fully trained and it wasn't enough. But perhaps... he could do something.

Juunana smirked inwardly. He washed the blood off of his hands, smiled in the mirror at himself, felt that extra bounce in his step. He checked himself in the mirror, perfect. He felt proud of himself, that he had finally taken care of that pest. It was her own fault, for going and saying something like that. While he, a fair man, could appreciate a little bit of rivalry he was absolutely opposed to the prospect in general of allowing that bitch to live thinking that she could go back and forth as she did.

He decided to clear up some of the confusion for her. He couldn't take it anymore. He was... reacting too strongly to this 'I love him-I don't.' Crap. "I mean, she all out declared in front of him that she would rather fuck me, felt bad about it, and then I had to do it."

"She pretty much loaded the gun and shot it on her own." Juuhachi was sitting on the counter, legs crossed, examining her nails. She was bored at this point, although it'd taken her a while to get out of some mood she'd been in. She had such a temper.

Juunana resented the sarcasm and half-hearted response, but kept on, "I don't understand how it is that she can change her mind so quickly. Well, never again. She can't do it any more. I'm all she's got now, no hero to save her now. What about the boy? Have you killed him yet?"

Juuhachi huffed, "No." And then she mumbled something he didn't quite catch.

He turned around, without a shirt, cuts across his chest glaring down at his sister. "What was that?" He asked.

"He got away." Juuhachi admitted.

"I thought we decided we would kill both of them tonight." Juunana looked at her, furious, "No resistance, whatsoever."

"And what would it do? There is no resistance at the moment. If we kill them all we'll have nothing to play with. Unfortunately, we need humans more than we let on." Juuhachi sighed, pragmatic as ever. And she quirked a brow at Juunana, knowing well enough she'd implied something that was about to incite much anger.

"Need?"

"Need. You heard me. Imagine a world that's just the two of us. We can't die, we can't do anything at all. Forever denied of our original purpose, which wasn't our choice in the first place, we just exist, aimlessly destroying things so that they can be rebuilt so that we can destroy them again."

Juunana grabbed his sister by the arms. She looked at him, beautiful blue eyes widened, "We do not need anything, nothing but each other!"

"I love you too," she let out sarcastically, jerking out of his grasp, "But you know that I'm right, in more ways than one."

"Why don't you just say it?!" He demanded sharply.

"Say what?" She hissed.

Juunana looked at her darkly, "You have been opposed to Bulma since I first saw her and decided to make her mine. And now you suggest that I need her? That she's making me weak, holding us back!?"

Juuhachi slipped off the counter and flipped her hair over her shoulder, "You said all of that on your own. All I said," She sashayed out of the room, and from the corridor he could hear her finish with a yawn, "was that we need humans to make things so that we can destroy them, because we have nothing else to do."

"Let's you and me get one thing straight," He began as he briskly moved into the room, "I do not need you. You are going to be my whore. I'm going to tell you something, and you're going to freak out, but this is your own doing. And remember: you are going to be my whore. I will use you in whatever way I wish. And if you do not comply, I will not kill you. I will kill your son. I will make you suffer. I will find anything that ever meant anything to you, and I will destroy it. I am a destroyer, Bulma, and I want you to understand that you are outmatched here."

She looked up at him. Finally, he had her full attention.

And then he told her. He told her about how after her outburst he could no longer contain himself. What he didn't tell her was that his jealousy was intense to the point of actual pain. Yes, she hurt him. And that would never happen again. So he eliminated the competition. He'd like to see the pretty boy even have a shot at getting anything in heaven, after what he did to him. It was borderline torture. He humiliated him. Son Gohan, and all of his strength, could do nothing. That was the plan. He didn't tell her that he had also planned on killing Trunks, claiming to his sister that there would no longer be any opposition. He didn't want to tolerate any more bullshit.

No more bullshit, none at all.

But she failed in that endeavor. No matter. As Bulma began to react to the news of Gohan's tragic demise he could tell that it was wise to have kept her son alive. Mess with her heart too much and perhaps he would have broken her. In a way in that moment as he watched her, hysterical, he understood what his sister meant. To completely break the humans would not help them, at all. They were without purpose.

Perhaps this entire ordeal, perhaps all of the pain and death and destruction he had caused was because of his lack of purpose. He possessed more power than all of the Z-fighteres, and probably too could have made anything out of Son Gokou, but he would never know. He would never realize the one destiny that had been set out for him. For this, as he watched her with only slightly opened eyes, he felt dizzy, and pale, and useless.

Almost even human.

But she was so, so very good at getting the best of him. She was superb at saying the right thing to take all of those feelings away and making sure that he would forever remain cold and cruel.

"I hate you Juu. I hate you, I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you..." She was rambling along, stuttering on the consonants, and his morbid interest as he just stood there in front of her, arms crossed over there with a blank and ironed face and

every

single

word

hit

harder

than

she

could

ever

imagine.

"Why did you have to kill him?! Why did you have to kill him?! You knew I loved him! You knew I loved him and he made me happy and you knew that he was the last thing I had left and I loved him so much, and Son Gohan was so much more than you will ever be to me," Harsh laughter now, "It's so simple because you don't even get it, that I loved him and I loved him and he is so much better than-"

"SHUT UP!"

He couldn't take it anymore. He pushed her on the bed, and for the first time ever he actually forced her. He always felt that he couldn't do it. He always felt a lot of ways. But now, in the midst of it all, all he knew was that he needed to fuck her and possess her in ways he never had before.

I need you to remember that you are not the one that is in control here.

He needed it desperately.

Juuhachi sighed a little bit to herself. She wondered if he knew what he was doing. She loved her brother, in a way that she didn't entirely understand. It had always been the two of them against the world. Against fate and destiny. And the forces of good.

But Son Gokou changed all of that. It didn't go according to plan. And then, this... woman! Juuhachi felt the most frustration at her. With no plans, no real goals or anything to do it was hard to blame her brother for eventually seeking out such amusement. Hell, hadn't she?

She saw potential in the young man that she hadn't in years. She hadn't seen it since what they now assumed to be his father. She leaned back, recalling the event. Their deaths were quick, without climax or chance. Perhaps that's why they allowed Gohan to live for so long. They could have killed him a million times over but they enjoyed playing with him too much.

Perhaps by allowing the others to live, there could have been a greater sense of direction.

But Juuhachi above all knew that the world that they lived in was one that depended on her whim. And she was bored and sulky, and a woman that had been rejected by the boy that she had agreed to kill.

She would just have to go out, and to find him and kill him after all. Juunana was loud, and Bulma's cries became dead after a while. Whatever his power trip was, whatever the issue with control and possession that he seemed to have, that was now up to him. Juuhachi escaped in the early morning, when it was cold and damn outside. She could feel that it had only just stopped raining. No matter.

She had a feeling as to where the kid would be, wherever Gohan was. Locate Son Gohan.

The lifeforce of Son Gohan cannot be located.

No, you idiot, the body. Locate the body of Son Gohan. His blood should be scattered everywhere. One location, two. An hour passes. Juuhachi finds determination in trying to find and kill the boy. For this evening she replaces her feeling that she has no destination with the desire to locate and destroy this beautiful boy. Juuhachi is almost desperate for this.

She feels that she needs this. That there was something great in her life that had been taken away from her. Not that she had a life, she had an existence. She was, until she wasn't. She would die when her mechanical parts rotted and she would finally shut down for the last time.

She imagined that it would be something like Human death, but something else entirely also. She didn't believe she had a soul. Because she didn't have a soul she wouldn't go to heaven. Then againj she wouldn't have to worry about Hell, either.

That's the thing about life, after all. There's something after it, good or bad is your choice. An existence, however...

Ended in coldness. And dark. And alone.

He hurt her in a way that she didn't imagine he ever could. There was a time so long ago in her mind that she had a conversation with Bejiita. That dream was so terrible. In many ways when she woke up she felt as if she'd had a real conversation with Bejiita. Their last one.

For the first time in a long time she considered how Bejiita would feel about the entire affair. Juunana was responsible for Bejiita's death and yet she allowed his darkness to seduce her. She felt beautiful and important and the more he desired her, the more she felt like her old self. The comparison was huge.

Bejiita was responsible for many horrors on his own hands and yet she found a way to love him. She made him a father. Every day she wished that father and son had more time together, and yet, recalling the darkness that surrounded the prince in her own right she was glad that that had minimal influence on her sweet son.

At some point she felt that Gohan's influence--or actually, Gokou's influence on Torankusu was the best thing possible for him. And yet she saw now that she harnessed nothing but confusion. She wondered what her son would think of, if only he knew.

She felt trapped, a slave forever in this dark world to Juunana. It seemed that the only way out would be death. At this point she felt as if there was nothing else that she could do, no negotiations. Bulma lay there, staring at the wall. Juunana was gone. He would re-enter soon: naked, energized, and ready to take her again.

She sat up in the bed and looked around. She felt sick. Her heart hurt. How would Bejiita feel to know that she had fallen in love with Gohan? And had she? Was it love? Did she love Bejiita?

The answer was simple: it didn't matter anymore.

He came back in, leering at her. The air shifted in a way that it hadn't in a long time. She felt afraid of him. He sensed it, he could practically smell it, and he loved it. His chest seemed smooth and flawless, and yet Bulma looked away, uninterested and engrossed in her own thoughts and sadness.

He noticed that, the lack of attention. It wasn't so much that she was bored of him, but that all of her other emotions had quite suddenly tuned him out. He no longer belonged in her life. And there was nothing Juunana resented more than this.

"I killed him, Bulma." Juunana said, and she looked up at him.

"Why do you have to tell me that?" Her voice was soft.

Juunana sat next to her. He smiled at her in a sarcastic manner, wrapped his arm around her, "Do you know why I killed Gohan, Bulma?"

"Because I said I loved him." Her answer was almost robotic.

He grinned, "That's true. And do you know what's going to happen if I don't feel satisfied with you?"

"You'll go kill something else important to me."

Juunana smiled, "Then I think that you had better get started pleasing me, don't you?"

She looked at him. She felt exhausted. The last thing that she wanted to do was willingly give pleasure to the one that had caused her so much sorrow. When would he ever let her go?

She was... without a doubt, powerless.

"I'm going to kill you." Juuhachi proclaimed. She approached him slowly. "But first I think that we have a few things to-"

And with that, the fight began. It was the first time she saw him as a Super Saiya-Jin. She was impressed, not only at the impulsiveness of his actions, but at his prowess and strength. He was a powerful creature, this boy.

Offhandedly it occurred to her that if anyone was to bring her ultimate demise, it would be this boy. It was always obvious that Gohan would never succeed in his mission. But this boy, something about him, the darkness that lurked in those blue eyes of his, the anger and hatred that he seemed to be denying, the part of him that was his father, would be victorious. One day, some day, in some way.

Perhaps it was because it frightened her that she fought back so hard. He took a rough kick to the chest and hit a wall. With that, he powered down, and it was moments before he would jump to his feet, ready to be attacked. "I told you," Juuhachi said slowly, her hips swaying as she moved, "that I had a few things to say. But since you were so," she grabbed his hair and pushed him against the wall, "rude, I guess we're going to have to do this the hard way."

Trunks grunted. Her strength was too much, and she wasn't getting tired.

Juuhachi was playing with him like a cat. Pick him up, torment him, throw him. The image of a dead and beaten Gohan was forever on his mind now, though. Trunks felt no fear. No regret. He felt nothing but a great sense of anger.

"You are a monster!" He cried out, powering up again. He moved out towards her, and they exchanged blows to a perfect rhythm. She kept up with him, and he did her, in a way that Gohan would have never expected.

His master would have been proud. He hoped that his father too would have been.

She knocked him down again. This time it took longer to get back up. Juuhachi moved towards him, "I have something that maybe you would like to know."

The sun was coming up. A new day. A new age. A new era.

"You have nothing of interest to me!" He cried out. Gohan was dead. Gohan was dead!

He was a shaking, crying, sobbing child on the inside. Broken up, torn up. Was this what it would have felt like to lose a father?

Juuhachi smiled, "Even if it concerns that mother of yours?"

Trunks was very still and silent. Every part of him was rigid.

"I thought so. You know, she's very beautiful. She must get a lot of attention."

Trunks was dead silent. He crossed his arms over his chest, "What is it that you have to say about my mother? Where is she?! Why have you taken her? What in the Hell is going ON?!"

God is a tyrant. He must be. Otherwise, this wouldn't have happened this way. Something in heaven was assuredly messed up. What benevolent being could have put her in such a position? She felt dull and numb when she performed on him. Nothing he said changed that. She tried to bring herself back in time, she would think of Gokou or Bejiita, or Trunks, or Gohan. Even Yamucha. She would think of her childhood and her parents. Juunana would pull at her hair and say awful things to her, he would taunt her and try to humiliate her to feel big, but it didn't matter. Nothing seemed to matter.

She felt quite dazed, and far away.

To her servicing him sexually was sick at this point. Nothing would make the time pass more quickly. Nothing made any of this go away. Her heart was moaning, looking for a kind smile or some sort of love. There was no heart to Juunana. There was no kindness to him, no love. Whatever his special feelings for her were, they were now gone.

Bulma was alone and she knew it.

She wished that there was something she could do to protect Trunks. Now that Gohan was dead she knew that it was only on a whim of Juunana's that he was alive as well. These were dark, rough, dangerous waters that she was in, and she didn't know if she could steer herself back. Telling him that she loved him, trying to pay any attention to him, would seem too forced. At this point she knew it was best to humor him. He wanted to punish her, and she knew it. He wanted her to suffer in ways that most people could only imagine. He wanted her broken, beaten, and alone. He wanted her to live the worst sort of existence, and when he was tired of her, she would die too.

Worst of all, he wanted her to know that her existence was dependent upon him. And that she would only be necessary for so long. Her thoughts were interrupted by him, sadistic beast that he was.

"Just think of it this way," He purred, "Maybe your son can finally know of our little deal like this, with you on your knees in front of me."

She glared at him, but was silent. He slapped her. She touched her cheek. He saw a spark in her eye and smiled.

Breaking her would be more fun than he could ever possibly imagine.

Bulma wondered if Bejiita ever had slaves, back when he was Furiza's pet. Of course he did, she knew he did, he told her he did. Power games always appealed to Bejiita too. It was how they first became attracted to each other. But there was something undeniably decent about Bejiita after a while, something that she did not feel at all in Juunana. She wondered how Bejiita treated his concubines, because that's surely what he meant by slaves. Did he seek to break them down in such a way?

The sick thought of her son seeing her this way was unacceptable to her. She knew at that moment that she would have to fight, but in the end all she could think was that Son Gokou needed to be alive. She needed him. Not in any sort of romantic or sexual way, as she so often found herself wanting men these days, but in a genuine sort of way. Had he survived he would have persevered. He would have conquered this darkness.

And Trunks?

Trunks would have grown up with a father.

"You're not stupid. I bet you know why Juunana took Buruma. I bet you know." Juuhachi egged him on. He attacked her without thinking and the action was returned with a rough elbow to the face.

He wiped the blood away, spit a little bit up. Juuhachi raised a brow, so he was a tough guy. "Why are you just playing with me? Tell me already!"

"She's such a beautiful woman, though, you know, I really admire her!" Juuhachi lunged at the younger man. Again, Trunks was on his back. He was feeling exhausted and weak. He needed to eat, he needed to sleep. It was such a long night, so much had happened.

He had aged.

And finally he admitted what she was right, he'd always known, "He took her because Gohan was in love with her."

Juuhachi smiled. She just stood in front of him and smiled that devious smile and he knew that it was true.

"He took her because Gohan was in love with her and he wanted her for himself."

"Go on." Juuhachi flipped her hair. She was eating this up, the exhausted tone in his voice. The way that he suddenly seemed to be so destroyed. "It's almost as if your whole world revolved around the idea that your mother was completely devoted to your father. Do you feel like maybe she thought you were a mistake? Do you feel like maybe she wished that instead your father was Son Gokou?"

Oh, it burned deep inside to hear that. And yet those were the demons that he tried so hard to look away from the past several years, "My mother loved my father!"

"Your mother," Juuhachi's eyes flared, "has been having sex with Gohan and Juunana for a very long time!" Juuhachi administered unto him a final blow, "Your mother is a whore."

A light in Trunks' eyes dimmed out. At first it flickered, defiant before her, more brilliantly than it ever had before, but he had to realize, he had to accept and acknowledge so much, and this time, he lay in the rubble, on concrete and blood, silent.

Juuhachi laughed. And maybe because she felt sorry for him, she left.

When Juunana woke up, she was gone. He looked about furiously. He was frantic. "That fucking BITCH! I'll kill her!"

He was raving, furious. Nothing could console him, nothing could stop this fury. Or perhaps one could stop this. Juuhachi stood in front of him. She cooled his anger with her calm. She leaned against a wall as if letting him pass, but she knew that he would stand in confusion at her actions, "I've been thinking..." She said.

"Whatever about!?" He hissed.

"You know, about this whole destiny thing that we had a conversation about the other day." She said simply, taking in his reaction. She watched him carefully, the way he breathed and how the tenseness in his muscles seemed to demand revenge.

Juunana raised a brow, barely able to maintain patience, "What are you getting at?"

"Well I'm assuming from your ever-so subtle behavior," Juuhachi began, "that your little woman made her big escape."

His silence confirmed it, and even though she could tell his temper was just about to flare, he stood silently, humoring her. "So what about it? I will simply go get her back." He punctuated the words, the way that he would quickly and cleanly administer his revenge. Juunana glared at his sister, "And you are preventing me from doing that with your silly little talks about fate and destiny!"

"But-"

He almost pushed her to the side as she reached out for his arm. Almost. He glared at her again, "What?"

"But what if we let her? Like I was telling you the other day, we're going to be bored without anything to do on this planet. Your whole idea of 'no opposition' won't work for us. We aren't tyrants, we don't want to rule over anything. Power and wealth isn't going to change anything. We just want a good time."'

"Well," He hissed in response, "My good time as you decided to point out is gone!"

"Sex with her? Why win the battle so easily? One day," Juuhachi said with a grin, "you can win. You can torture her in the ways that you always wanted to. But the boy, I fought him last night. He can go blonde like the other one could."

Those words made Juunana raise a brow, "So you mean he's more powerful now."

"The game is on again." Juuhachi grinned at her brother.

"You know, I'm not really one for cat-and-mouse like you are..." Juunana began stroking his chin, concentrating, thinking deeply about the deal on the table. "So we give him a chance to bring us down. Don't you think you're gambling here?"

"What can they do that they haven't already? And they're down a member. They're practically done."

"Then what's the point?"

Juuhachi smiled, "I like giving people false hopes."

"But then... she's going to be mine, and I don't want to hear anything from you."

Juuhachi nodded. They would make that deal. They would give them a chance. She knew that Juunana would go along with the prospect of a challenge. They had no destiny, and so she would create one for herself, no matter how temporary.

She would make his life a living Hell, this Trunks boy. She would make him hurt.

When he woke up, he was in his bed. He heard slight humming, and felt someone brushing his hair back. Immediately, he shot up in bed and grabbed the wrist of the other individual. He heard a soft gasp, and then saw that he was looking into the eyes of his beloved mother for the first time in what felt like forever. "Mom..."

Bulma smiled at her son, giving him a soft kiss on the forehead, "It's okay. We're okay right now."

"Mom..."

"Don't worry about anything at all, son, I've got it-"

"Mom!" He felt himself panic a little bit, "Gohan is dead."

Tears threatened Bulma when she heard those words. She looked away, silent. Trunks watched her carefully, "I know, Son."

"Did you love him, Mom?" Trunks asked. He felt anger towards his mother all of a sudden. He never really felt this way about her again, but he could not get the word whore out of his mind. She slept with him like she slept with Gokou like she slept with Gohan like she just slept with his father. Did she know no loyalty? Was sex such a big thing to his mother? Was everything about attraction and replacing one lover with another? He didn't understand and he didn't think he wanted to. All he felt was betrayal and fury.

The coldness in his tone told her that the conversation they were about to have would be long."Gohan... there are some things I haven't been entirely... truthful about."

"No!" Trunks hissed, "You're going to answer my questions now."

Bulma sighed. "I deserve this."

"Did you or did you not have sex with Gohan?"

"I did but--"

"Yes or no." He was cold. He was in control. He felt mechanical. He needed to tell the truth.

"Yes. I did."

"At this same time, did you or did you not have sex with Juunana?"

Silence.

"Did you!?"

".....Yes." Her eventual answer broke his heart.

And with that, he felt something crack, "Willingly?"

"...Yes."

"So you're meaning to tell me that you slept in my father's bed with Gohan and at the same time you were running out, offering yourself to the absolute cause of my father's death?!" He was furious. The tips of his hair were turning blonde. He was gathering energy, and the bed underneath him was cracking. Bulma found herself frightened, and as tears streamed down his face, and his voice cracked, she could tell that the young man was deeply confused, "My father... my father---"

"Your father would be very, very proud of you." She rested a hand on his cheek.

"Don't do that!" He shouted at her, jumping out of the bed, "You! You just stay away from me!"

The air became thick. Bulma did not know what to do. She felt as if she'd lost the most important thing to her in all of the world. "Trunks, what would you have me say?"

"Nothing! Your actions have done enough! Gohan is dead! And it's your fault! And my father is dead! And now those crazy, sadistic beasts have the satisfaction of having you too! They have taken everything from me! I have nothing!"

And finally, Bulma saw her actions in a light she hadn't considered before. He was right. Everything she did hurt more than herself. And she had to answer to him now, and she didn't know how to.

"Say something!" He demanded, tears streaming down his face.

She sat down. He was furious that she was so damn calm. And finally, she began, "Trunks, I have a lot of problems. But don't think that I don't love your-"

"No!" He shouted, his voice thick with emotion, "You don't love my father! Don't you ever dare say those words! You don't love my father and you don't love me! You're sick!" He backed up, back back back up against a wall until he could move away from her no more, "You... you never loved anything but yourself."

The words hit her like knives. She began to cry. "I didn't mean to. I did love Bejiita, I did! Even when he didn't love me. And you? You mean everything to me, son!"

He looked at her. A coldness came over him, "I don't believe you, mom. It's going to take me a very long time to believe you."

"Look... I know I've hurt you," Bulma sighed, "But... I think there's something we can do about the androids."

Juuhachi had returned. Juunana was gone, she had no idea where he was. The door opened, and for the first time the naked Bulma stared into the eyes of the other dark woman. She dropped a small bag in front of her, and then closed the door again. Bulma opened it, blinking a bit. A dyno-cap. A car. A means to escape.

She opened the door moments later, fully dressed, 'Is this some sort of joke?'

'No. No it's not. Get out of here before he gets back.' She said, shaking her head.

'Why?'

'Because I want a challenge. I'm letting you know right now. We are not going to go easy on you. I dare you to try and stop us.'

'I see...' Bulma said. And then she simply left.

"What do you mean?"

"Look... I don't really think there's anything we can do alone. We need help."

"I know that mom, but where?"

"Not where, Trunks."

"Then what?"

Bulma crossed her arms over her chest and looked in his eyes with conviction and confidence. And then, she gave a smirk worthy of Bejiita, "When."

The sun has risen. The sky outside was the most beautiful shade of blue. From the clouds, so high above, Bulma could make something out from the window. A single blue rose fell from the sky. It was such a curious thing. It rested on the ground only for a few moments. Bulma watched it for a moment, curious, unsure, afraid. But the rose gave her hope. And a sense of self that she didn't feel she had since the day that Bejiita went away into the sky forever. Finally, the sky had given her something back. The tiniest sense of hope that ever could be allowed. And suddenly, it evaporated, sparkling in the sunlight. She felt joy and sadness all at once, and could swear that she heard a voice, raspy and arrogant, that she had not heard in over a decade. She turned and looked at her son with a smile on her face. We can do this. We can have hope. We do not have to be afraid. We do not have to belong to anyone anymore.

Blue Roses.