Chapter 40. Confinement
The final days of Akane's pregnancy had Vegeta so tensed he could hardly function. The worrying made it impossible for him to sleep or eat and as the days wore on he was beginning to look more and more like a walking corpse. He no longer agreed with his little mate's decision to deliver his daughter on her own since even the medic had now lost all faith that she would succeed due to the kitten's insane base power.
The medic had spent hours trying to talk Akane out of it. His little mate wouldn't hear any of it. Although her tenacity was very appealing to him, it also drove him to madness as it could very easily turn into plain stubbornness. Regarding this he feared that it had indeed done so. The pressure of making his wishes had kept him from fretting over it for a while, but now that there was room for it in his mind again, the worries could no longer be kept at bay.
What if she really did die? Would he cope? Would he even want to cope? Since he took her as his mate she had become as much a part of him as his own limbs. He didn't believe he could do without her anymore. As he wasn't prone to sentimentality, it came as a shock to him that he could feel these things, yet in his heart he knew that it was true. The bond they had tied on to was not something easily cast aside and it was now that he truly began to understand how his father must have felt after his mother's passing. Of course Vegeta trusted that he could live on without his little mate, he just wasn't sure that he would want to.
Even now, in her blessed sleep, so comfortably oblivious of the troubles of the waking world, she was tucked away somewhere in the back of his mind, purring lazily in the distance. To think that he would never feel her inside him again was almost unbearable.
Battling his own faint-heartedness, he turned away from the ever sleeping form on the bed and started pacing the room with frustrated strides. This wasn't like him, or at least it wasn't a side he knew himself to possess. He was ill equipped to dealing with himself right now. A horrible realisation struck him suddenly. He could have done something to prevent this. He could have wished for Akane's safety during the delivery of their daughter and he wasted that second wish on the instant transmission technique for his son who could just as easily have visited him with Kakarot's help.
A profoundly sick feeling took him. Was he really so blinded by his own pride that he would rather put his mate in danger than accept help from the Earth-Saiyajin he had grown to despise simply because the man was a stronger warrior than he was?
But Vegeta didn't have time to think it through at the time. There wasn't supposed to be another wish. He had simply given in to the first thing that came to mind, enabling his son to visit him whenever the boy wanted to. That wouldn't have been a repulsive decision if it weren't for the underlying antipathy he felt towards being dependent on Kakarot.
On his way to the bathroom he stripped down his clothing and stepped into the shower hoping to divert his mind from the devastating idea of losing his mate. He tipped his head back, closing his eyes to let the shower run down his face. It took a while for the dark cloud of thought to start lifting from him. It was replaced by a fierce resoluteness that rooted within him. He wasn't going to let her die.
Hot steam billowed in the small room as he mulled over the precautionary actions he would be able to make to keep his mate safe. The medic had to be present and at the slightest indication that something was going wrong, he would have the man perform that abdominal delivery he had been pressing on. If Akane refused, and expecting that was reasonable, Vegeta could always knock her out. The thought seemed harsh to him and she would probably never forgive him, at least she would be alive to hate him for it and that was the preferable option.
More at ease now he turned off the shower and raised his ki briefly to dry the water on his skin. He returned to the bed chamber and climbed into bed with his mate. She didn't wake up when he wrestled his arm beneath her back to hold her, and her belly, while he lay there praying for sleep that yet again failed to come.
The belly moved beneath his hand and not for the first time it baffled him how much of a life of its own the object had started to lead. This had fascinated him during the woman's pregnancies as well. It had been easier then though. He had never fretted, never feared for the woman in the way he was doing for his little mate right now.
As he lay there, stroking the belly and enjoying how strongly his daughter reacted to his touch by pressing in from the other side, attracted by the movement of his fingers, he knew that she at least was going to be fine. Her life-force was strong and she was ready to take on the world. It was a fact that his daughter would survive no matter what happened.
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.
.
Vegeta had succeeded in dozing off after all because something was now nagging him to wake up. He rubbed his face groggily and rolled to his side with a growl of protest. He didn't feel like coming back from the little sleep he had in three days. At the moment he discovered that Akane was no longer in his arms however, he shot up in the bed before his eyes were even fully open.
Akane was scurrying through the room with a pillow clasped under her arm and something that looked like a hastily gathered together collection of clothing. And what the hell was that? Vegeta strained his eyes in the gloom of the darkened room and saw, but couldn't quite believe, what looked to be a huge leg of meat clenched between her teeth.
"What in the name of the Good Mother are you doing?" he asked, his voice thick with sleep.
Akane faced him making a rough noise that resembled a greeting from behind the meat. Her eyes had a kind of wild, urgent look in them. They almost glowed in the gloom. Without explanation she resumed her way through the chamber and opened the small cupboard in the far corner in which she dumped the pillow and the clothing before she came back out.
Vegeta witnessed all this with the certainty that he was either having a very strange dream or that his little mate had at last turned into a headcase. He felt her urgency through their bond and it was shouted down by the feeling of joyful expectation that had erupted within her. And he knew that this was it. She was lying in.
"Akane?" Vegeta addressed her uncertainly as he crossed the room to hit the light switch. He wished he knew what to do, but common sense had been stripped from him and all there was left was immobilizing panic.
Akane didn't seem aware of him and continued her restless haunting of the room, retrieving the clothing and pillow from the cupboard again and trying out various spots by crouching in them. First inside the shower, then back to the cupboard, then the floor at the foot of the bed… She even tried to get under the bed. And all Vegeta could do was watch utterly stricken. At last Akane gave up with a whimper of pure misery and fell atop the bed cradling her leg of meat.
"You have to leave the room." Akane started eating her meat with forceful bites, as though she couldn't eat any more, but needed to nonetheless. "I can't have you with me."
The sound of her voice willed him back into motion. He hurried to dress himself. "But you…"
"It is dishonouring!" Akane shouted him down. Then she settled down with her chest heaving and her eyes fixed on the ceiling. "I need to do this on my own."
Vegeta heard her sigh her relief as he left the room, but he wasn't even thinking of leaving her to do it on her own. Mere minutes later he was back with the medic and his three headed support team following after him and by that time Vegeta's heart was racing in his chest.
They found Akane whimpering and writhing on the bed. When Vegeta allowed a fraction of her pain to seep through their link, he was brought to an involuntarily halt. His fingers went numb, his muscles throbbed from the severe sensation and he somehow couldn't find a means of overcoming the distance to where she lay.
The medic and his team immediately crowded the bed, examining, touching and asking her urgently how she was doing. When Akane started screaming and threatening them in reply, they did everything they could come up with to try and calm her down.
The thing that happened then was too surreal for Vegeta to comprehend, though it happened right in front of him. There was an explosion of power, power he was certain she had not possessed before, and when it was released into the room everybody was blown back tumbling on the floor with cries of horror. Everybody but him that was. The whole ship was quaking from the force she set free. Everything around them had been trashed to bits and in the centre of this chaos was the bed, untouched with a seething Akane lying on it.
Vegeta was the first to recover from the assault and he hastily sought his way through the debris. Akane grabbed the front of his shirt soon as she caught sight of him and did it with such violence and unworldly strength that he actually believed her capable, both in the mental and physical sense, of killing him right on the spot.
"Get them out." Akane rasped menacingly.
Vegeta found himself pathetically ineffective in convincing her she needed their help. All that occupied him was how mighty she was in all her pain. The medical staff joined his campaign soon as they were back on their feet, though with a lot less courage than he displayed in the face of his little mate's wrath.
"This is my task! Not yours or his! Mine!" Akane shouted and the voices around them died away instantly.
In the dangerous silence that followed, Akane gave a brief and devastating glare to the very frightened looking medic and he, together with his team, backed away from the bed without hesitation. Vegeta cursed them out using every imprecation he could dig up, all the while attempting to free himself from the hands that had grasped the back of his head. She was truly too much for him to take on by himself as she dragged him closer until he caved in and bent over her, one knee on the bed, the other trying to keep firm footing on the floor. Instincts made him phase directly into his super two form and he didn't even notice the gasps of awe coming from the medic and his suport team.
"If you dare to prevent me from completing this, I will kill you." Akane was right in his face, panting with every spoken word, the force behind them unmistakable. "Now get them out."
Vegeta was defeated by the knowledge that there was no way of overpowering her without the chance of ending up killing her himself. It struck him now that every obstacle he threw in her path would only drain her from this insane strength. She needed it to even have a chance of successfully birthing his daughter. In stead of using it to fight him she should be putting it to use in the way it was supposed to and he wasn't letting her. He gave a nod, unwilling, his super form leaving him, and she cut him loose. As he tested his abused neck he almost expected his head to fall right off.
The rage ebbed away from her face at the assurance that she wouldn't have to fight him any longer and quietness washed over her.
"No fear. I will do this and you will be proud." Akane whispered.
Vegeta pushed the dampened hair out of her face with another nod. "Don't let me down."
Her smile was quickly overtaken by the pain. She arched her back, turning her face away from him in mortification and biting back the cry that was ripped from her. Even now she would not gladly show him her pain. Such a triviality in the face of death. At least so it was to him. To her it mattered as much as always to hide what she was feeling. Perhaps her pride was harder to overcome than his own.
True to his words Vegeta turned away with everything inside him objecting to it. He shouted everybody out of the room and when the door fell shut after him, cutting off his little mate's horrible whimpers, the biggest part of him was left behind in the room with her to bear witness of what he was positive would be her death.
.
.
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There was only pain. It blinded, it tore, it destroyed and yet it was what she needed to survive. The silence was, like her pain, absolute. There was nothing else. These two things made up her whole world and in it Akane sat enwrapped in her agony. Accepting it, embracing it, even nurturing it. The power was still building within her as her kitten gifted her with more and more of her own force and Akane took it in greedily, no matter how it hurt.
The bed had been too soft, the chamber too big and she had felt exposed and vulnerable lying there helpless as she was. Not anymore. The cupboard was just large enough to hold her and cool and dark and she felt safe within its confined space. The door was shut tight and she was all alone. They were gone with their staring eyes, their worrying faces. None would see the torment that made tears leak from her eyes.
The floor of the cupboard was dusty and hard but bracing under her bare feet where she crouched, her hands pressed firmly against the wall in front of her, both the wall and the floor counteracting every wince she made and keeping her steady on her haunches as the contractions ripped through her. This was all she needed. No medic, no Vegeta fearing for her. Just this dark place with the cold floor and wall to support her. Her body knew what to do and how to do it enough. This was the ultimate test. Here she would prove whether she was truly worthy of her place by her mighty Prince's side. And no one was going to take that away from her.
The kitten stopped sharing power and began struggling to be free from her body. Akane wasn't strong enough to let her come yet. She took the initiative by tapping into her daughter's wicked force and drawing more of it into herself in spite of the kitten's reluctance to give it up. It hurt more still and it was becoming increasingly hard to keep the power flowing between them when the kitten began to actively strive against her. Akane refused to give in. She needed it if she wanted to make it out of this alive. She fought, thwarted by every contraction that rocked her body, yet determent to see this through.
Something very strange happened then. Akane's power was still building and at the same time her kitten was powering up as well. Exhilarated she came to realise that she was no longer tapping into her daughter's power, that this was her own force. It was rising to breathtaking heights. They both ascended, higher and higher, so fast it surpassed the speed of thought, the kitten taking the lead and encouraging her to follow. It was all Akane could do to keep up as they raced to the top and she would have laughed had she the energy to spare for it.
But there it suddenly stopped. It was as though she had come upon a ceiling, solid and impenetrable and she hit it hard, her whole body quaking. The kitten was still racing and Akane could imagine the little monster displaying the same arrogant smirk her father possessed as she left her mother well behind. Akane pushed again and again until her limit was broken. Upon bursting through the ceiling, cold fire roared within her and she marveled at the sensation mastering her. She knew this force. She had felt it in her mate whenever he transformed. She didn't need to look at the strands of hair plastered to her sweating forehead to know that they had turned blonde. The energy debouched from her, surging and crackling in the stuffy cupboard to set it alight. She had attained her super form.
Akane let her energy course throughout her body. It lulled her to complete stillness as it sang sweetly to her from the well where her might lay. She teetered on the edge of this unparalelled pleasure shuddering in ecstasy, long, longer, so long that it became unbearable. This was perfection.
Another contraction shredded her and she could no longer stop the kitten from coming. The birth set in with terrible force. Her throat was sore before she had even began screaming as hard as she wanted to when her inner walls were torn apart. Her new power waned and she lost it as suddenly as she had attained it, taking with it the remnant of her strength and leaving her utterly undefended in the rampage of her kitten's decisive march into this world.
Even if dying now seemed inevitable, she wasn't going to let it happen before her task was properly finished. She pushed with all her might, uncaring of the feel of her internal walls tearing further and her own life slipping away from her. Her kitten's power ate away at her until not even a breath was left to her and she faded away while her daughter arrived. Akane reached down between her legs where blood puddled on the floor, ready to catch her kitten as she slipped out head first into her hands. Crying her victory, she drew the little life securely to her chest and collapsed to her side with her daughter safely in her arms. It was done.
Akane tumbled into blackness with nothing to hold on to, nothing to catch her own fall. The drop was long and painless because there was no more body in which to house it and there came blissful peace. And then, nothing.