Steam swirled from Bulla's coffee cup and danced at the base of her nose. For the past four days she had spent most of her time side-by-side with Kygo trying to decipher where Cell's weak point was.

The trouble was, there was no good way of knowing without actually testing their theories out. Kygo believed that you just needed one good shot on him in the right place and it would be his undoing. Finding that spot was proving to be hard, but there was a shortlist. Bulla strategized that she had to manage specifically attacking him in one of those target areas, but based on Cell's fighting style, that would be easier said than done.

Lazily, she picked up the coffee and brought it to her lips. Softly, she blew on it, letting the steam swirl and evaporate in the air. She couldn't believe that in a few short hours she would be standing in the ring with Cell. She could already feel his power oscillating around her.

Every inch of him screamed powerful, from his enormous frame to his confidence in battle. Despite how hard she had trained in the time chamber, she didn't know if she was ready to take him on. She wondered what would happen if they lost. She thought of her mother sitting there, waiting at the dirty, cracked kitchen table, forever looking at the door to see her daughter return. Surely she would know her daughter's fate, but knowing her mother, she knew she would never stop believing that one day Bulla would come back home.

A knock at the door jolted her from her seat. In the doorway stood Gohan, a sheepish smile on his face.

"That's no way to be prepared," he smiled.

"Hey, that's my line, kid," she said.

Gohan walked over to the desk to see the work that had been done on Cell's blueprints. Arrows darted and weaved around different parts of the body. Scribbled near each were equations that Gohan couldn't figure out. On paper, Cell didn't seem so mighty. In fact, he seemed rather small.

"Any closer to finding his weakness?" Gohan asked.

Bulla pressed her pen to her lips and shook her head.

"Not really." She motioned to the diagram and pointed to at least a dozen circles. "It could literally be any one of these points, but we have no clue which one is the right one. I have to imagine we'll just try them all, but as you and I both know, Cell is fast and cunning, and I doubt he'll let us get close enough to him to actually directly hit any of these places."

She pressed her arms against the table, scooting over and motioning to Gohan to grab the chair across the room. He picked it up and placed it beside her, careening his neck to see the papers littered across the smooth surface.

"You're going to try every one?" Gohan smiled.

"If I can, yes," Bulla said. "I tried showing this to my dad, but he shoved me off entirely. So it looks like it's just me and you using this strategy."

"You don't seem at all bothered by Cell," Gohan said. "I wish I had your confidence"

"I don't know that it's confidence, necessarily," Bulla winked. "I like to think of it as willful ignorance."

"Ignorance of what? His strength?"

"No," she said. "That I might die in the process."

Gohan prickled at her admission. He hated picturing Bulla falling to the hands of Cell. He hated the idea of any of his friends falling to him. The bubble of anxiety that had plagued him since entering the time chamber rose in him again. Sinking down into his chair, he studied her face as she looked over the diagram for what he imagined was the hundredth time.

While he struggled against the current, she seemed to swim with it. Death did not scare her, nor did Cell, instead it fueled her to continue fighting. The true heart of a Saiyan. Jealousy bloomed in him and he longed to muster up the courage to be even a tiny bit like her.

"Can I ask you something?" Gohan asked, his hands twisting in one another.

"Sure," Bulla said, her eyes still glued to the paper.

"Are you...Are you ever…" Gohan took a long breath, "Are you ever resentful?"

She slowly turned her head to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"Do you ever resent that you were born a Saiyan?" He asked. "That this is your job to take care of?"

Bulla watched Gohan's face. It was clear that he was grappling with something. Refusing to meet his eyes to her, he focused instead on his feet that lazily hung onto the first rung of the chair. Instinctively, he flexed them back and forth.

"Absolutely," she said sincerely. "Being a Saiyan warrior isn't necessarily an easy thing to be. But I try to think of it as a gift rather than a curse."

"Lately I've just been feeling resentful of it all," Gohan lamented. "Like I'm on this path that I had no role in choosing. I...I'm starting to wonder if this is what I'm fit to do."

"Of course you're fit to do it," she said. "You're fit to do lots of things."

"But there's this pressure…"

"From who?" Bulla asked, surprising in her voice. "Goku? Piccolo?"

"No," Gohan shook his head quickly. "It's not like that, it's…"

He trailed off. Telling Bulla how he felt would cement his feelings. Words are a powerful thing, and using them would give credence to the inner conflict waging in him. But she was the only one who could possibly understand what it meant to be of two worlds: to be a Saiyan and an Earthing; an alien and a human. He cleared his throat and pressed on.

"In the time chamber, when I transformed into a Super Saiyan the first time, it was because I felt like I was two people and I couldn't figure out how to be one person. My anger was like this poison that was eating me from the inside out, and I remember the look on my dad's face. He was elated and sad at the same time, like he was seeing my struggle laid bare. And I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to blame him for making me this way."

Bulla crossed her arms. His admission surprised her. Future Gohan often spoke to her with as much frankness, but never once had he expressed fear or doubt about being a Saiyan. Did he feel like that in the future for all those years?

"You're angry at your dad," she nodded, and then laughed. "I can relate."

"I'm not—it's not even like I'm mad at him," Gohan said. "It's like I'm mad at myself that I can't just be more like him, that I can't just run into a battle the way he can or face my fears like he does."

"Your dad is one of the most incredible people I've met in my life," Bulla smiled. "He reminds me a lot of the you from my time."

"Really?"

"Absolutely," Bulla said. "Future you was strong and smart and kind. All the best things—that's Gohan. And that will be you someday. But you can't get in your own head about being your father. Focus on being you. You can go your own way."

"That's the problem," he sighed. "I don't know which way I want to go."

"What do you mean?"

"Part of me wants to fight," he said softly. "But the other part...the other part doesn't."

"Our abilities call us to do a warrior's work," she replied. "But it doesn't mean that's all of who we are, or all that we'll ever be. You might feel like two people, but that doesn't mean you have to be two people. You can just be you—a mixture of all the wonderful things you are: The warrior, the scholar, the friend and beloved son."

She placed her hand on Gohan's back and gently rubbed circles into it. Warmth radiated from her hand and it made Gohan feel more at ease than he had been in the longest time. It felt good for someone to finally understand.

"You're not disappointing anyone by being scared of who you are or what you're called to do," she continued. "Especially not your dad."

"I know," Gohan said. "I had no right to feel so angry with him."

"People aren't perfect," she said. "You're not. He's not. Anger is a natural thing to feel and we're allowed to criticize the people we love. It doesn't make us love them any less."

Around her blue eyes, a glimmer of hope flashed. Gohan watched it dance and swirl and for the first time in several days felt the pressure brewing in his chest release just a tiny bit. His shoulders pressed back into the chair as he relaxed his rigid position and he let out a deep sigh.

"That's the hard part of growing up—realizing that no one is beyond reproach," Bulla said softly. "We all have at least one beast inside of us. We are all heroes of our own stories but villains in the next. I mean, look at 18."

An incredulous laugh escaped Bulla's lips. Her mother had always told her that people were capable of change. When she left the future, she hoped that was true for many different reasons. But truly, she never believed for a second that she would call upon the people who had so terrorized her time. Time really had changed.

"If you had told me when I first arrived that 18 would help us fight Cell, I would've called you a liar," she chuckled. "None of us are all good or bad, and if we're mostly bad it's because something made us that way."

"I guess I just forget sometimes, you know," Gohan said quietly. "Sometimes it's hard to remember that."

Bulla snapped her gaze to Gohan's. Ever so slightly his lip began to quiver. Fear consumed him for many reasons. It wasn't just about disappointing his father for not fulfilling a legacy, or the desire to do something greater with his mind. Gnawing deep down in him was the fundamental question of what makes someone good.

What separates us from monsters like Cell or Frieza or Gero is the fact that we are capable of love; that we're capable of fighting for something beyond ourselves," Bulla said, gently placing her hand on his shoulder. "It's what gives us strength. We destroy to protect-not to own or control. We kill to spare innocent people the burden of bloodshed. We are good."

"You think so?"

"I know so," she said.

"Bulla," Gohan's voice was heavy. "I know you can't see it, but your dad—deep down he is good, too. He's not the same person he was."

She closed her eyes and smiled.

"It's funny," she said softly. "When I was growing up I always pictured him as the hero others painted into the villain, like he was deeply misunderstood or something. Now I'm not so sure."

"He loves you," Gohan said.

"No," she replied solemnly. "He doesn't."

Machines in the lab hummed in the background as the two half-Saiyan's sat in silence. Gohan didn't know what exactly to say to her. A deep sadness was in her eyes, one that he wished he could wipe away. The only version of her father she knew was the one that was cruel to her, the one who berated her, but Gohan knew the truth. Behind his closed veneer was a man who longed for the warmth of family. He wished so fervently that she would realize that, too.

"If anything, meeting him has freed me from him," her voice pierced the air. "The hole left in my heart from his absence hasn't been fixed, but I no longer have to picture a world where he could've been a father to me. I know that reality now, and I think I prefer to be alone."

"You don't mean that," Gohan said.

"I guess what I mean to say is that it doesn't matter all that much to me," she sighed. "It's not about him anymore. It's about me now."

Grabbing the papers spread across the table, she shuffled them into a neat pile. Her hand pressed down on it and she slid it over off to the side. She stood up and returned her chair neatly underneath the table, gently brushing her fingers along the back of the wooden frame.

"We only carry the burdens of our fathers if we choose to, Gohan," she said. "I hope you don't let yours drive a wedge through you."

Gohan didn't speak as she walked out of the laboratory. Instead his mind wandered to the battle ahead. For the first time in a long time, Gohan's mind was perfectly still. Peace washed over him as he realized that today was the first day he would try to accept himself just the way he was, and the thread of anger he weaved started to slowly unravel.

When Cell came for him tomorrow, he would fight with courage. He had so much he needed to protect.