Note: I was dying to write this scene, and now I get to put it on here! Twenty-six chapters down... three to go.
The music for this chapter was an inspired find. Driving home from work one day, my husband and I heard this song on the radio and at the same time, looked at each other and said, "That has to go in the book." So the lyrics for this chapter are from Nickelback's "Because of You."
And the Greatest of These
Chapter Twenty-Five
"VEGETA! NO!"
Goku's hoarse cry of futile denial was cut short by a familiar rushing sound, and a shimmer of pale blue light appeared in front of Vegeta just as the blast reached him...
Then suddenly the blast was swept aside.
"What?" Omega shouted.
For a split second, Vegeta thought he was hallucinating, but as the energy blast collided with a nearby mountain and exploded, sending gravel and dust in every direction, he knew that it had been no hallucination.
Half-blinded by pain, Goku and the others stared disbelievingly at the crater left from the explosion, and as they turned back to Vegeta…
… they saw Kurenai, shining with light, standing before the fallen prince.
It can't be… I left her at the Lookout… Goku's thoughts were almost incoherent from the shock and the pain.
All of them had been so engrossed in the fighting that no one had noticed her approaching energy signal. But there she stood, one hand outstretched with which she'd blocked Omega's attack, her eyes filled with a dark resolve.
How did she get here? Piccolo wondered dazedly. Even we can't fly that fast…
Now that the immediate threat had passed, Kurenai was staring at the battlefield in horror, her gaze taking in the damage Omega had done to her friends.
She saw where Vegeta and the others had fallen, she saw Piccolo and Goku battered and struggling to fight yet again, she saw Omega laughing at what he had done to the ones she cared for the most…
You must let go… came a voice from within her, at once unknown yet familiar.
A voice like an echo, or a memory…
Shiryu.
And if I do? she asked silently.
We will destroy him, Kurenai, Shiryu answered in that dream-like voice. You are my avatar, my chosen… your body holds my power…together, we will stop this evil.
And then you and your power will leave me…
Yes.
And I will die.
Yes.
For an eternal moment inside her soul, Kurenai was silent, a profound sadness filling her heart.
Then came her answer.
So be it.
And the hold she had on the phenomenal energy within her began to slip.
▲▼▲
The woman straightened, standing tall and defiant. When she spoke, it was not only the clear, gentle voice they knew as Kurenai's, but beneath it was another voice, deeper and far more powerful.
"I have waited a thousand years for you, sorcerer. Now I am she… we are one… unfortunately for you."
"Stop, Kurenai, you can't give in to it!" Gohan cried out. "If the Dragon takes you over, there'll be nothing left!"
"No, Gohan," came her reply. "There has been enough misery… enough suffering… enough death. This has to end… and it will end RIGHT NOW!"
A dazzling corona of energy abruptly blazed high around Kurenai as she began to power up, her wail of fury drowned out by the rumbling of the earth beneath her. As the ground started trembling, nearby boulders began exploding from the energy flowing through her, and thunderclouds swiftly massed overhead in a rapidly darkening sky. Black lightning flashed around her aura as she drew on power that had long lain dormant within her, her whole body shaking as she gathered energy from deep within her soul to end this battle once and for all.
Dust and debris raced around her in a hundred small whirlwinds, smoke swirled in every direction from her power, the storm overhead brewed with devastating force, and her screams were echoing in everyone's ears as her body strained to contain the energy she was amassing within her. Lightning sparked from cloud to cloud above her, and the wind howled like a thousand hellish cyclones.
The battle-weary Z Warriors could only watch in absolute amazement as Kurenai's power level went right off the scale.
"Whoa!" Yamcha's exclamation could hardly be heard over the commotion on the battlefield. "I had no idea she was that strong!"
"That's not her!" Gohan shrieked. "That's the Dragon inside her, she's letting him loose!"
Standing in the center of a raging inferno of her own making, Kurenai couldn't stop screaming, and the Z Warriors instinctively covered their ears to block out that inhuman cry of defiance and anger. Her small hands were clutching her head as her entire body convulsed, racked by the energy that was controlling her.
Even through his own shock, Piccolo could see that her eyes were wide open, shining with tears, darkened by hate, blinded by pain.
Name of the Gods, he whispered to himself silently, she's… I've never seen anything like it. Her eyes… they're not human.
Kurenai was so caught up in her fury that she didn't even notice that Omega was powering up as well. She drew in a deep breath, focused her eyes on Omega, and then howled in that voice that was hers and yet not hers, "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"
Just as Goku blinked, he saw her aura change from blue to red.
Wait a second… that's the…
"KAIO KEN TIMES ONE HUNDRED!" she screamed, and in a rush too swift to follow, she sprang like a sprinter off the blocks and attacked the sorcerer for all she was worth.
Kurenai caught him entirely off guard as she smashed straight through his defenses. Pounding him straight in the jaw with her fist, she nearly snapped Omega's neck as she sent him reeling backward, fighting to remain on his feet.
She barely slowed down as she shot past him, pausing only long enough to touch down on the ground, whirl around, and lunge back at him. Omega thought she would try the same move again, but she feinted, used the speed of the Kaio Ken to get behind him, and blasted him straight into the side of a mountain, which exploded into rubble as the sorcerer plowed through it.
Kurenai gave Omega no time to recover. Instead, she drew on the incredible speed she possessed, moving behind him in a flash to drive a hard kick right into his lower back as he flew out the other side of the mountain.
"Curse you!" he shouted as he coughed up blood where her shot had caught him right in the kidneys, but Kurenai was too angry to stop now. She raced past him, stopped hard, whirled around, and brought her knee up straight into his stomach, breaking several of his ribs in the process, and Omega doubled over.
"Holy cow!" Krillin gasped. "Are you seeing… what I'm seeing, Tien?"
As the sorcerer howled in pain, Kurenai then brought her small fists together overhead and swung them savagely down into his back.
"Yeah," Tien coughed, staring in amazement as Omega crashed down into another mountain while Kurenai dove after him. "I can't believe it… but I can see it."
It's incredible… With all the power of her immortality, she can push the Kaio Ken to unbelievable limits! Goku thought as he watched her fight. I can hardly imagine how much damage she could do if she used our other techniques!
Goku's unspoken question was soon answered, with devastating results.
Gathering energy around her hand, she made a lightning-fast series of gestures and threw a haymaker enhanced by Yamcha's Energy Bomb technique that pummeled Omega further into the mountainside. Only a quick energy blast meant to distract her stopped Kurenai from finishing him off, and Omega turned and quickly blasted his way through the mountain away from her. Flying straight through the debris, Kurenai took off after him and caught the dark warrior with a flurry of punches and kicks as though he were a training bag.
As Omega landed in a billowing cloud of dust back on the battlefield, the entire group heard Kurenai holler, "HERE, YOU MONSTER! LET'S SEE YOU CATCH THIS!"
She flung her arms wide, and lightning flashed around her. The Z Warriors had no idea how, but suddenly the energy surging around her made her earlier power-up look like nothing.
"What the hell is she doing?" Vegeta yelled over the wind's howling.
Inside her soul, she reached further into the well of energy that only Vegeta had ever glimpsed was there, and drew its dark fire to the surface, letting it run through her blood.
"YOU WANT POWER? I'LL SHOW YOU POWER!"
Her voice was harsh with a Dragon's unholy wrath. All of her attention was on Omega, and the smile on her face sent chills down their spines.
"Everybody, get down!" Yamcha yelled in panic.
Then she brought her hands before her and focused her power there, much, much faster than any of them had thought possible. It crackled and sparked, then blazed like a star in her grasp.
"FINAL FLASH!"
With a resounding boom, an incandescent stream of energy the size of a comet thundered down from the heavens where Kurenai was hovering, and it hammered Omega straight into the ground.
The sorcerer barely had time to get a deflection up before he disappeared completely beneath the surface, and Kurenai dove toward the ground to land outside the hole, her hands positioned to attack.
"I'LL MAKE SURE YOU NEVER COME OUT! TRI-BEAM!"
She drew on her vast psychic force and sent the triangle of golden light blazing down into the ground where Omega was. Again and again, she fired the attack where she could sense him hiding as each shot widened the hole even further.
"No, Kurenai, don't do it!" Piccolo shouted roughly, wishing he could get up and help. "He absorbs energy from attacks!"
She didn't care.
"FINE! IF I CAN'T BLAST YOU OUT, I'LL DROWN YOU DOWN THERE!"
The entire planet seemed to shake as her hands became a blur of motion, and with a torrent of energy blasts, Kurenai started drilling right through the bedrock of the island to begin flooding the hole with water.
"You're going to destroy the whole planet!" Gohan screamed at her. "Kurenai! You've got to stop it!"
But just as the last layer of earth gave way to the flood of water pressing against it, a blast erupted out of the water at Kurenai, and she barely had time to dive out of the way before Omega soared out from beneath the surface.
Looking impossibly stronger than he had earlier.
"That's it, wear yourself out!" he taunted. "Then you will be mine!"
"Like hell I will!" she shouted from the cliff where she'd landed to avoid his attack. "But if you want me, then come and get me!"
The dark sorcerer leapt into the sky straight at Kurenai, who unflinchingly stood her ground. Then she cupped one hand behind the other and drew them back over her left hip. A swirling halo of violet lightning spun wildly around her body.
I know that move, Vegeta gasped in recognition. That's my…
"GALIC GUN, FIRE!"
Enhanced to astronomical proportions by the power of her Kaio Ken, the shock wave flattened the Z Warriors against the ground as a brilliant magenta energy blast shot from her hands straight into Omega. He was fast enough to get the absorption field up, however, and he laughed as her energy flooded into him.
"No! It's not possible!" she cried in disbelief.
"Kurenai, listen to me!" Goku's voice was barely audible from where she stood, but she looked down at the sprawled Saiyan. "Omega can absorb your energy as you attack him! You're willingly using it to fight! You have to stop fighting him and get out of here!"
But the sorcerer was not about to let his prey get away again.
"My turn."
Using the energy he'd taken from her, Omega suddenly lunged forward and flew straight into her, slamming the crown of his head directly into her face. The force and sudden pain knocked her backward off her feet, and Kurenai slipped and nearly fell.
In no time, the dark warrior was all over the immortal, taking advantage of her distraction to pound her as hard as he could. Omega quickly took control of their battle, no matter how hard Kurenai tried, but she refused to give in. The longer she tried, the more obvious the drain on her energy became. But she couldn't flee, for her heart and her conscience kept her on the battlefield. While it was certainly possible for her to escape, that meant leaving the defenseless Z Warriors behind to face Omega's wrath. Even if she found a way to get all of them to safety, it would all come back down to this anyway.
And Omega knew it as well as she did.
"I can't take this anymore! Daddy, we have to help her! Come on!" Gohan struggled to rise, but Goku stopped him.
"No, Gohan, we can't."
Gohan looked at his father as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Come on, Dad!"
But Goku shook his head and stopped his son with a hand on his arm. "No."
"But she needs our help!" Gohan protested, trying to pull away.
"If we go out there now, we'll only be a distraction," Goku said softly. "Believe me, I wish it were me out there instead of Kurenai. But I… we… can't save her."
"How can you say that!" Gohan cried. "Don't you even care that she's doing this for us?"
Gohan's words cut straight to Goku's soul, and he closed his eyes and turned away from his son as the others watched. Gohan looked to the others, but they turned away as well to watch Kurenai fight for their lives and her soul. And his control snapped.
"Fine! Stay here if you want to! But I'm not going to just stand here and watch!"
Gohan powered up to fly out onto the battlefield, but before he could take off, Piccolo lunged at him and trapped his arms at his sides.
"Piccolo, what are you doing? Let go of me! Kurenai needs me!"
"I won't let you go out there, Gohan. As hard as it is for you to watch, that is all you can do now for Kurenai."
"You're just saying that because I'm a child!"
"No, Gohan, it's not that," Goku said softly. "You've proven a thousand times that you're just as brave and strong as we are in battle."
Gohan looked at his father in wary confusion. "Then why won't you let me help her?"
Goku looked his son in the eyes, his face as serious as Gohan had ever seen it. "There comes a moment in your life, son, where you know that something absolutely terrible is going to happen to someone you care for. And you know that if you try and stop it, if you try and do anything, it will kill you. But you accept the fact that you'll die, and you do it anyway. All of us have died at some point, Gohan… all of us but you. We each reached that point. For different reasons, yes, but we've all realized that sometimes, your life is the only thing you have left to give for what's right in this world."
Goku looked sadly at Kurenai, struggling valiantly against Omega. "And after so long, Kurenai has finally reached that point. It's not the world that she's worried about anymore, it's not even her own life. It's us. And she would rather die a hundred times over than let anything ever happen to us."
"So instead we're just going to stand here and watch her die!"
"If that's what it takes," Piccolo growled, holding him tighter. "You going out there and getting yourself killed would make her sacrifice for nothing! Is that what you want her death to mean?"
And tears filled the child's eyes. "But it hurts, Piccolo."
"I know, Gohan."
▲▼▲
After what felt like hours, Omega paused and looked at her mockingly.
"Come now, Kurenai, how long do you plan to keep this up?"
"I'm… not giving up! Not… to you! NEVER… to you!" she rasped as she gazed at him in loathing.
"You can't win," Omega said matter-of-factly. "You will tire, you will lose, and then all of your power will be mine."
Then he lashed out at her, grabbed her by the ankle and started swinging her around in circles. When he was certain she was completely disoriented, he used the momentum from the swing to send her careening down into the same hole she'd thrown him into earlier. As she crashed into the ground, he landed beside the hole and crossed his arms.
"Kurenai! Are you all right?" Yamcha called.
At first there was no reply, but then they all heard shifting rock as she slowly climbed back out, covered in dust. She crouched down in pain, holding her ribs and coughing up blood.
"Give up," he mocked her. "Surrender to me and I might even let your friends go."
Her only answer was to spit in his face.
"Very well, then." Growling as he wiped the moisture from his cheek, Omega turned and surveyed the battlefield, his eyes going from one Z Warrior to the next.
He saw how Vegeta and Goku watched Kurenai, desperation in their eyes… and he saw how Gohan wept for her.
The boy… he looks like those two warriors. One of those two is most likely his father. Then he glanced at Kurenai, who was swaying on her feet, but still resolute. Is it possible? Despite all the tests… did she have a child?
Omega held out one hand and pointed at Gohan, who lay powerless on the ground.
"Tell me, my dear… is this your son?"
Kurenai froze. No… he… he cannot be serious that he would kill a child… just to get at me…
"You wouldn't…" she began, but he cut her off.
"Oh, believe me, Kurenai, I most certainly would."
"How could you?" she cried. "He's only a child!"
Suddenly the same black fire with which the sorcerer had threatened Vegeta now flashed again around Omega's hand. "My patience grows thin, immortal," he demanded. "Is he yours?"
"Leave him alone," she whispered.
"TELL ME!"
"No… no, he's not. I swear to you, he isn't."
"Does the fact that he is not your son make his life any less valuable to you?"
Kurenai shook her head, never taking her eyes off Gohan.
"Then give me your power, Kurenai, or I will destroy your young friend."
No, I can't give this monster my power, he'll destroy the world if I do, she cried silently, furious at her own helplessness. But… neither can I let him kill Gohan…
she cried silently, furious at her own helplessness.She was shaking with anger as she looked from Gohan to Omega, who smiled, a cruel and lifeless smile that sent chills down her spine. Inside her head, she was screaming in helpless fury, and it was more than she could bear. If it's the last thing I do, I will not let him or anyone else die because of me! I cannot, I WILL not let that happen! I WOULD DIE FIRST!
Suddenly the rage in her head and her heart ceased, and she stood face to face with the truth, a realization that had nothing to do with reason or logic.
I… love them…
She rose to her feet with tears streaming down her face. Then, slowly, she took one step toward Omega, her hands hanging limply at her sides, her head bowed in submission.
"No, Kurenai, no!" came Goku's cry, and Kurenai lifted her head to look at Goku.
And he looked past her grief to see murder in her dark eyes.
Teleporting to stand between Omega and Gohan, Kurenai closed her eyes, swiftly raised both hands to the sides of her face, and shouted.
"SOLAR FLARE!"
Instantly a dazzling flash appeared right where she'd been standing, and the Z Warriors threw up their arms in a vain attempt to fend off temporary blindness. The sudden light also caught Omega, and he howled in anger as his vision went white.
While Omega and the others were blinded, Kurenai opened her eyes and took a long look around the battlefield.
There was Gohan …
Vegeta and Yamcha…
Krillin and Tien…
Piccolo and Goku…
No longer holding back her tears, she whispered, "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry that all of you have come to this… I swear to you, I'll finish this… and make it right."
With a deep, heartfelt sigh, she called to mind a spell, lifted one hand, sliced a circle in the air, and imagined all of the Z Warriors within it. And with a voice as soft as the evening breeze, whispered, "Papparapa!"
The seven warriors vanished.
Then Kurenai turned to Omega, her hands clenched so hard that blood trickled from her palms.
As the blindness passed, the Z Warriors groggily looked around.
"Damn it all, who taught her that one! Whoever it was, I'm gonna pound him into the ground when this is over!" Piccolo cursed, rubbing his eyes to restore his sight.
"What in the world happened?" Tien asked, cautiously getting to his feet.
"I thought we were goners for sure!" Yamcha added as Tien helped him up.
Krillin shuddered. "We WERE goners!"
"But it's all fuzzy in my head," Gohan replied. "One minute we'd been attacked by Omega, then the next… there was this light… and Kurenai was there."
Piccolo shot Goku a sudden look. "And I thought you left her at the Lookout!"
"If she really was using our attacks," Vegeta said slowly, "then it is possible that somehow she also learned Kakarot's Instant Transmission. It's the only way she could have gotten here so fast, without Omega knowing she was coming."
Goku was looking for Kurenai when he suddenly cried out, his worst nightmare coming true before his eyes, and there wasn't a damned thing he could do to stop it.
It is time, Kurenai… came Shiryu's voice. Time for you to fulfill your destiny and save the world… time for you to die, so that the ones you love might live.
She turned back for one last look at the cliff on which the Z Warriors stood.
OhGodpleaseGodnopleasenonononononono…
But it was too late. Goku saw her take Omega's hand in her small one.
Without realizing it, he began screaming aloud. "NO, KURENAI, NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
A thunderclap like the wrath of heaven sounded, and a windstorm of energy exploded around Omega and Kurenai.
Something inside of Kurenai, something cold and intense and powerful, filled her mind, her body, her heart, and her soul.
The power of a Dragon.
The power of death.
And with a voice that reached the skies, Kurenai screamed.
"ETERNAL DRAGON, BY YOUR NAME, I SUMMON YOU FORTH… SHIRYU!"
To be continued...