1Deeper Than Soul
DisclaimersI do not own Dbz. If I did, Gohan and all the other fighters would fight forever!
I'm terribly sorry about the long wait. It took me quite awhile to regain my senses. This is the last chapter and I wanna make sure I do it the best of my abilities so you, my readers, will still be interested in the future sequel.
I'm finding the father I get into the story- the more my skills changed. So- eventually, the first chapters will have to be rewritten. Unfortunately a lot of them were just too poor to stand up next to the finale ones. So I may have to work on DTS a bit more before moving on to its sequel.
Another thing that must be mentioned is the passage of time. Where this story ends is not necessarily where the sequel begins. It's come to my attention that two of the sequels were rather pointless continuations that really held only a few key points to the story line. And those points were really not needed at all. So I will have to skip them and go strait to the third planned sequel. To make up for loss time- there will be a rather long prologue explaining exactly how everything turned out. There should be small inserts of actual clips already planned- but other than that it starts again way after this story.
I also cannot do review responses on my fanfic anymore do to some disagreement with the admin. So- instead- the responses shall be posted up on my journal. If you should want to see them.
Once again I apologize for the wait. Without further ado- Chapter 26 of Deeper Than Soul.
-LAST TIME ON DTS-
Xiea knew the fear in Gohan and she lavished it.
"You would have been perfect."
"Please. Leave me alone."
I'll be with you soon, Vegeta. As soon as I defeat Xiea…
"Could you survive this for me?"
"Damn you, boy. Since when did you think I cared at all?"
I'm really the only one left?
"For Krillen."
Gohan collapsed on the beach- smiling and knowing he had nothing left.
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Chapter 26: Ends Of The Earth
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"Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view."
-Anon
—
Stooped over, in a groove of pines, the demi sayain sat. There was something in the way he sat that showed injury. Showed an immense sort of pain.
Vegeta made his way carefully over. The boy didn't look up until the elder one was at his side. Gohan jumped slightly at his presence and tried to hide the object cupped in his hands. But he was too careful in hiding it- too gentle... Vegeta's eye caught sight of the crimson liquid that sprayed the floor in Gohan's haste to hide.
Warm hands enveloped Gohan's own gently prying them free of their prize. And in them lay the ruffled and broken body of a dove. It's head lay limp off to one side of Gohan's hands- dripping blood and white feathers everywhere.
I killed it... I killed it, Vegeta, Gohan sobbed in absolute agony. I killed her.
That's okay. Sometimes we have to...
Gohan's eyes fluttered open. Sand was everywhere- getting in every pore. Slowly he tried to push himself back up. His limbs felt like rubber and acted like such too. He fell again- helpless- in the all-knowing, all-being sand.
There was a hissing sound just before the sand began dancing. It flared about him, white hot, scalding and biting in a whirlwind of pain. Gohan held himself close and let the pain pass.
The winds died- and Gohan looked up. There she was, clad in fabric armor- weighted clothes, mocking him as she hovered overhead, hand outstretched. Gohan's eyes widened, shining a hapless brown, as a glow shown up in her hand again.
She clutched it expertly and spun it around again- hurling it down at her target. Her clothes whipped with her- black as midnight.
With energy Gohan doubted he still possessed, the demi sayain pressed himself off the ground and across the waking waters of the lake. Hovering trepidly over storming waters, Gohan was still felt the stinging sand eating at him. The sand bed he had been in seconds erupted into an inferno of sand and light.
If that had really been the same attack he had endured earlier- Gohan couldn't see how he was still alive. Staring in awe at the light, Gohan did not see as she hurled herself down at him. There was second- her lips close to Gohan's own- where he could have touched her. A light enveloped them both- crushing into Gohan's chest and lungs and hurling him across the waters.
Blood was flowing and falling up and around him. Gohan could see his feet above his head and waited for the blackness to evoke him... but it did not. Only a flicker of chi kept Gohan from sinking into the ocean- holding him once more, above the raging waves.
Xiea's face was indescribable. Rage flared within her chi but the expression and body movement she held was calm and sad. As if she was killing a little white bird.
Gohan found his eyelids threatening to close- drooping ever so slightly. Her lips moved to the beat of his heart, slow and dying beneath the waves. He couldn't hear- couldn't see- could hardly breathe.
She was rushing at him again. Rushing and holding out burning suns- souls, dying within death.
You can't bring them back.
Why can't I? Gohan muttered in the blood and snow. Where have they all gone?
Far far away. Far far far away away.
Shi must have run out of places to put their dead. Gohan sighed indifferently.
Don't die. Survive. Survive, Gohan.
Why me?
Listen and Duck.
Gohan ducked beneath a blow that most certainly should have claimed his life. Turning his back against the wind, he saw Xiea wind up her punch again.
I promised I'd go back some day.
"Why don't you die!" Xiea's shriek ricocheted off the raging storm.
Gohan blinked feeling the glass shatter within his eyes. His heart gave a resounding jolt causing the hybrid to cry out in pain. He gripped his chest and ducked another blow, unintentionally. His body was on fire. On fire.
His eyes poured tears with the rain. And the tears steamed off him because of his resonating internal fire. He withered like a dying snake, shaking off Xiea's attacks.
The queen of earth drew back watching Gohan's struggle without amusement or fear. Her eyes bore upon him, ripping and tearing off his childish facade.
The monster inside roared and made the child tremble horribly.
Stay in. Stay in, please.
Gohan's voice fell to one side, allowing his body to filled up, brimming, with the hate and rage of this new being. The bile made his body boil and burn. Fists clenched and unclenched
The monster had broken, bitten, and found its way free.
The brown faded- overpowered once again by a deep purple.
He buckled with pain, clutching his chest and fighting to keep himself inside. Blood ran and fell into tossing waves. The multitudinous seas incarnadine.
And Gohan screamed. A bellowing and lonesome shriek- spilling out of him all the hate and bile that ran so deep. It echoed throughout the ruins and turned the heads of those still living. The dead rolled in their sleep.
"Gohan," Krillen gaspedinaptly
There was a lamp in his hand. He watched the boy fall over and over in his mind. The object fell and clanged- Gohan's face inches from a hardwood floor.
Gohan! What happened!
They knew. They knew I was different.
How different are you, Gohan?
Dragged down by cumbersome luggage, Krillen made his way to a better view. Blood trailed both their treks.
"Hold on, Gohan. We'll see you save the world," Krillen hissed.
Vegeta hung limply over him, overpowering the human with the smell of dead and blood. But he would make it. They would both see Gohan win... or die trying.
Gohan's scream fell silent against the sandy shores.
Krillen reached the beach. Both undead and vigilant eyes saw Gohan hanging there, eyes flashing a multitude of color.
Pain rippled up Krillen's arm as blood and electricity suffused their forms. His inane cries of the sayian's name filled the heavy air. Those dark eyes covered his breath and silenced his words.
Gohan. You're hurting me.
"Nooo! Gohan!" Krillen cried over the charging waves. "You have to let it!"
Gohan's flashing eyes saw the figures on the beach in green, red, and blue. The monster in his heart was screaming and burning.
I don't want to hurt anyone, Vegeta.
"Let it go!" Krillen shouted, his voice growing hoarse. "Let it win!"
Gohan blinked. It was purple. Vegeta was purple. Tears fell and Gohan- the monster- let them.
Krillen yelped as a chi blast was flung his way- picking up sand around them. Vegeta's corpse hit the earth resoundingly while Krillen fought off the biting sands. Still in purple. Still in a deep purple.
Deeper than soul.
Gohan inhaled.
I will teach you-
Deeper than soul.
Gohan's body went limp and his form receded inside himself. He hung from one point off the base of his neck like a puppet. Xiea ceased in tormenting Krillen- and watched. Krillen let the sands fall around him- and watched. Vegeta's dead antiquarian eyes watched.
The earth groaned as Gohan's hands slowly rose. They spread out across from him as if he were being crucified to the air. The cups of his hands turned upwards to heaven, gathering something from the universe that was just so immense and great- both dead and living eyes couldn't see it.
And then inexplicitly, Gohan's hand rose again... over the top of his head. The earth groaned even louder and trembled beneath him. The water shifted and parted. Through the shower of water, Xiea could see him.
Her eyes widened with the late fear as she watched him shed the facade he had donned for so many years. His hair changed. Its black color glittered and shimmered away revealing a bright white hair underneath. It was unlike the gold hair of a super sayain. This hair moved in the strands- remaining ultimately free in the harsh winds.
It whipped about in his newly created winds. The air that had been heavy with sweat and death lifted and chilled itself over a thousand times.
Vegeta watched and watched and watched.
"No! I shall not be defeated by the likes of you!" Xiea screamed charging up her best attack. "I own this world! I own you, Son Gohan!"
Her once almighty energy spurred and lifted up next to that on the immeasurable power of the hybrid. The forces fought each other quietly through the air- each one making no move.
And he shall be made an example of...
"You were supposed to die first!" Xiea screamed releasing her energy into the spiraling, swirling whirlpool that was Gohan.
Krillen screamed, but Xiea's scream reached ears first. Vegeta continued to watch in his muted silence.
Gohan opened his eyes.
No scarier sight was there, than the calm and serene sea of torment that tossed around in these great and pure eyes of hybrid creation.
Xiea's shout got caught up inside her throat like a frightened animal. She bit her perfect lip and cowered behind her seemingly limitless energy. Gohan could see the end. Or rather... it could see the end.
It of purple eyes. It of the gods.
His hands moved on puppet strings, against a tremendous force of wind. His lips parted to say but one word.
Xiea froze at the word... uttered by a different voice than Gohan's. It was higher and more infant like. As if the voice had just been born to say this word. A word that surged with such suggestion that one felt compleded to answer the demand.
"Die." Gohan said.
The rest was a mass of blurry confusion. Krillen felt the light overtake him- pulling him out of his body and through the air. It hardly hurt. In fact, he only smiled as his body fell beneath him.
Vegeta's face vanished in the storm of light- silencing a long dead legacy of warrior and hero.
And the world, everyone, in sleep or in wake- felt themselves die peacefully in the light. The suggestion imprinted in each their minds was calm and claiming. And every single body fell from the light- until only Gohan and Xiea were left.
Xiea fought, helpless, against the light that tried to call her and pull her away.
You don't understand. I can't go- I have to stay- I have to kill him. This is my world. He's mine.
The world spun upside down- and Xiea saw his face, so beautiful and covered in a serene light. He seemed hardly phased by her attempted to defy him.
"I will not be defeated." She hissed, earth and heaven disappearing around them.
Of course. His eyes seemed to say. But you will die.
"I will not!" Xiea shouted fighting to gain her control.
You will, because I said so.
And the pain overtook her. Her body was ripped apart in her soul's refusal to let go. Blood and carne covering the airless place, the light disappeared.
And earth with it.
-
"Sir. Come look at this."
The man made his way from his throne and to the window. Seven golden stars took flight from a distant planet as it imploded. This explosion lit up the man's face and awed him to no end.
"The dragon balls," He uttered. "So they've returned."
-
The space grew quiet and dead once more. And upon one fragment of dead earth lay a broken body. A orange four starred ball rolled past his hand and fell soundlessly next to his unmoving body.
And the ball moved again as the chest expanded for another breath of air. So the ball continued it's trek past the hand and back again- in air less space.
But still the boy breathed.
The End
Please R R!
Okay. Before you all come at me with pitchforks and what not- there is a sequel. So look out for the continuation called Forgotten Shades of Red. It will have a long prologue that explains the passage of time.
So until then- I hope you all enjoyed Deeper Than Soul. Thanks for reviewing and enjoying. So finally- it is done! YAY:big grin:
