I decided to go back and rewrite this little one-shot. It's one of my favorites and I wanted to redo it since I'm experiencing some writer's block. Anyway, angst ahead so be warned.

Age 774 Five Months Following Kid Buu's Defeat

"Looks like it'll storm tonight." Goku always knew when it would storm. He had lived in the mountains long enough to know when a thunderstorm would come rolling in. It wasn't unusual to have a late-fall storm, and he didn't worry about it too much. These storms were harmless in essence and would maybe lead to a loose roof shingle, but nothing more than that. He didn't pay much attention to it as he carried a stack of firewood inside.

Later that night, the storm came rushing through the area. The wind howled with aggression, and rain pelted the ground with fury. Animals did their best to tuck away from the beating storm in caves, trees, and even holes in the ground. This was not a night to be outside, that's for sure.

In the familiar small house in Mt. Paozu, all the occupants inside were fast asleep. The six children, ages 7 to 17, and their parents were adrift in their dreams, snuggling under blanket covers and going to worlds beyond the storming realm of reality.

In one room shared by 13-year old Chinku and 8-year old Chibiko, the two were sound asleep but in different fashions. Chinku was sprawled out on her bed, her limbs going all over the place- a somewhat loud snore escaping her- and her blanket practically dangled from the bed. This may have looked awkward to any stranger of the Son family, but this was just confirmation that she was dead-asleep.

Opposite of the young teen was Chibiko, who was curled up in a fetal position with her arms wrapped around a stuffed dragon toy. Her feet were pulled to her chest, and her long black hair was neatly placed behind her head that faced away from the bedroom window. This position seemed comfortable, but Chibiko's squinting face seemed to be a troubling sign that perhaps her dreams were not very pleasant compared to others.

Chibi found herself on the front lawn of her house. However, she noticed that something was off. It was quiet, something that was an oddity considering that her house was full to the brim with people. She should've heard Daichi messing with Chinku by replacing her hair dye with the wrong color; Goten and Trunks playing a video game that Trunks had brought from home; Chiyo and Gohan laughing while they were practicing super hero poses; or her mother scolding her father for eating most of the food in the house again. Instead, she heard absolute silence. That lack of noise was so eerie that Chibi felt shivers run down her spine.

"Dad? Mom? Anyone?" She called out as she approached the house. The 8-year old girl made her way to the front door and opened it, noticing the house was just as eerily quiet inside as it was outside. This was not normal, not in the least bit. She should've heard something, anything really! "Is anybody home?"

As she walked inside, the house lacked liveliness and it was as if something had come in and snuffed the life out of it. How could a home with so many people be so, to put it bluntly, dead?

A slight rustle was heard from the kitchen soon grabbed Chibiko's attention. The young half-saiyan made her way there and sighed in relief when she saw her Mother and Chinku were there doing the dishes. Their backs were turned to her, but at least they were there. But if they were here, then where were her brothers and other sister? And her Dad? And Chinku doing dishes? Practically unheard of!

"Mom, Chin," Chibi spoke. "Where's everyone else?"

Neither replied to Chibi. In fact, they just continued to work on the dishes with Chi-Chi washing them before handing them to Chinku to dry and put in the cupboards. Their movement was somehow robotic- like they were programmed to do this and nothing else.

"Um, hello?" Chibi said, confused as to the nature of this whole situation. "Mom? Chinku? What's going on?"

"Why'd you let it happen, dear?" Chi-Chi questioned in a monotone voice. She didn't sound angry or even upset. It was almost metallic with how she spoke, like a machine speaking instead of a person.

Chibi blinked in confusion. "Huh? Mom, what are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what's she's talking about," Chinku spoke in the same robotic monotone voice. That was very odd. Chinku was usually the life of the party, always full of energy and excitement about everything going on. Never had Chibiko heard her sister sounds so inhuman in her tone of voice.

Regardless, the young girl was getting frustrated. She didn't understand why her mother and sister were being so vague and not even looking at her when they spoke. If they at least looked at her when talking to her, then she'd be able to tell what form of emotions they were conveying. Just staring at their backs told her nothing. It just added to her irritation, and she already had a difficult problem with controlling her temper. "I have no idea what you guys are talking about!" Chibi shouted, her voice echoing through the empty house. "Will you both stop being cryptic and tell me what you're even referring to?! Where the heck is everyone else?! I have no clue what you two-"

"It's about your failure," The two interrupted, their voices seeming even colder and more inhuman.

Before Chibi could question them both further on the matter, Chi-Chi and Chinku turned to face the young girl. When Chibi saw their eyes, she felt her stomach drop: their normal beautiful black eyes were now red, and the white sclera was black. These were not the eyes of a normal being. Chibi had seen those eyes before. Heck, it had only been five months prior that she had seen those wretched eyes, but they belonged to someone who was nothing but evil. They belonged to the evil Majin Buu, Super Buu, to be more precise. Chibi's mouth was agape as she saw the eyes that belonged to this vile creature now on her mother and sister.

"You let us die, Chibiko," The two said in unison. The creep factor was officially up to eleven now. They both took a step towards her, and she took a step back in return. "Why didn't you stop Buu from killing us?"

The young-half saiyan in question shook from head-to-toe, unable to reply with her usual quick-wit or smart-aleck remarks. She was terrified at what was before her. This just couldn't be happening! It just couldn't!

Slowly, Chibiko began to take a few more steps away from the pair, and they countered this by taking steps closer to her. Their reds eyes were baring into her with such intensity, yet their facial expressions were as blank as can be. "S-Stay away from me!" Chibi stuttered out, her voice cracking as she continued backing away.

"Why? You can't live with the choices you made?" Chinku asked, a bit of a wicked grin coming to her face.

The way she smiled looked so maniacal, just like Buu. Chibi's real sister would never look at her like that.

"Don't worry, dear," Chi-Chi said, the same wicked grin coming to her face. "It'll all be over soon~."

That seemed to do it for Chibi because, in one quick move, she turned and booked it for the door. She swung it open so fast and so hard that she thought that it would come off its hinges. It didn't matter if it did or not; all she wanted to do was get as far as quickly as possible. She had to get away from this place. This couldn't have been her home. This place had to be some sort of trap set up by Buu to catch her. No way was she staying to find out.

However, when she tried to take off for the air, Chibiko found herself unable to lift off the ground. In fact, she couldn't even jump that high up either. "What the?!" She gasped when her attempt to fly resulted in her face-planting into the ground. There would definitely be bruises and forming on her elbows and knees after this. "I-I can't fly?!"

"Chibi~." Her mother and sister's voices rang from behind, making her blood run cold.

Thinking quickly and not daring to look back, Chibiko decided to just run instead. No way was she staying put. The least she could do was try running away. She thought that she would at least be able to outrun the two if they tried giving chase. The long-haired child ducked under tree branches and ran through bushes in an attempt to get as far away from the house as she possibly could. Chibi had no clear direction in which she was going, but all she knew was that she needed to run.

After running for a while, she didn't hear footsteps behind her. She expected the two to chase after her, but there was nothing. Just as she looked over her shoulder to look for pursuers, she bumped full-force into something and ended up falling down on her butt. At first, she thought she had hit a tree or something because whatever she ran into was strong and sturdy like an oak. However, when she looked up to see what she had hit, she found it not to be a tree but her eldest brother Gohan. He was slightly turned away from her and wearing his orange and blue gi, but at that moment, Chibiko was relieved. She had someone she could turn to, someone she thought of as her protector. Since she was a baby, he had been there for her, being the one who had given her the nickname Chibi on account of how she was the smallest baby of the Son kids.

"Gohan," Chibi smiled when she saw her brother, quickly bouncing up to her feet. However, she quickly wiped the smile off her face as she went to convey her tale to her older brother; "Gohan, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I was at the house and Mom, and Chinku's eyes were all red and stuff just like B-"

She stopped mid-sentence when he turned to reveal his eyes. They were the same menacing red eyes and blank expression that Chibi had seen on her mother and sister moments prior.

"No," Chibi squeaked out, the color draining from her face as she backed away from Gohan, and he began approaching her, not yet saying a word. "G-Gohan?"

"This is your fault, you know," He told her as he kept in pace with her. His eyes were furrowed as his strides seemed to be an attempt to close the distance between himself and his little sister. "You let Buu absorb us."

Chibi's throat closed up as he attempted to grab her, but Chibi, to her surprise, fired off a small blast that directly hit Gohan's hand. Normally, Gohan should've been able to handle that, but this Gohan instantly dropped to his knees in pain after the young girl had blasted him. "I-I'm so sorry!" She apologized, not expecting Gohan to be in actual pain from the attempt at defending herself. However, upon closer inspection, Chibi was shocked to find that the thing she had blasted wasn't actually a normal hand. At least, it was no longer in the shape of one. No, what was at the end of Gohan's left arm was nothing but a deformed, pink, blob-like substance instead of fingers belonging to a human.

"You just keep hurting us, Chibi," Gohan stated, looking down at his "hand." He then looked directly at her, his eyes boring into her. "Do you just like watching us suffer?"

Not sure what to do, Chibi went to turn and run again but stopped when she saw her older sister Chiyo standing behind her. She was sporting the same red eyes as well, and she was dawned in the blue and red gi that she had gotten from their mother.

"You did nothing while Buu absorbed us," Chiyo stated in a cold voice that was so alien to her ordinarily warm and loving voice. Chiyo had always been like a second mom to Chibi and was always so comforting and friendly to everyone. This dark and unfeeling energy she was now portraying was enough to make Chibi's blood run cold. "And now you're attacking us? Do we mean nothing to you?"

"I-I didn't mean to, I swear!" Chibi tried to explain. Why was she trying to explain herself to people, or things, that weren't actually her family members? Or was it her family? Had Buu done this to them?

"You say that, but why should we believe you?" Chiyo questioned, almost in an angered snarl. She then attempted to reach for the young girl, but instead of firing a small ki blast to defend herself, Chibiko decided to duck and run.

She didn't get very far when she found her path of escape was by someone else. She gasped when she saw it was one of her teachers, Piccolo. The Namekian was like a grouchy uncle to her, teaching her the basics of martial arts when she was but a wee toddler. Now, he stood there, blocking her escape with the dreaded red eyes of Buu. "You just stood there and watched while we struggled to escape," Piccolo condemned Chibi. "You froze like a coward."

Not wanting to explain herself any further due to fear just taking over, Chibi tried running again. Trying to reason with these fakes was getting her nowhere. She had to get away.

Just when it seemed like she couldn't be anymore cornered than she already felt, Chibi managed to run into yet another person. This time, this person was her height instead of towering above her like the others. She looked and found Gotenks standing there and, just like everyone else, he bore the red eyes of Buu. Instead of the usual smirk that the fused warrior had, he had a look of defeat and sadness on his face. "Why did you let us down, Chibi?" The fusion asked in a sad voice. Had his words not been compound with the red eyes, Chibiko would've been almost sympathetic towards him. This brought about such feelings of guilt in Chibi that it made her stomach twist in a knot. "I thought you cared about us."

"O-Of course I care," Chibi stuttered. Tears began brimming from her eyes. "I tried, believe me, I tried! I just…I wasn't strong enough. I fought Buu with everything I had, but I couldn't do anything!"

"Liar!" Gotenks growled at Chibi, causing her to jump back as he swung at her. "You're a liar!"

"I'm not a liar!" Or was she? Was it really lying saying she did everything she could? Surely, she could've done more to help her friends and family. But in the moments of danger, all she could do was stand there frozen while the people around her were snuffed out one by one.

Unable to bear it anymore, Chibi ran past Gotenks and as far as she could away from the scene. She booked it deeper into the woods as fast as she could, tears coming down her face and sweat dripping down her body as she ran. What could she do? Where could she run to? What was happening to the people she cared about? Was there anyone left to help her?

When she came to rest against a tree, Chibiko let out a series of pants as she tried to figure things out. She felt her heart beating a million miles in her chest and thought her lungs were going to explode from running so fast.

Buu had to be behind this. There was no other explanation for this. He was messing with her, and she knew it. She knew that the Fat Buu couldn't be trusted. He was turning on her and everyone else by doing, well, whatever this was. That was the only logical conclusion she could come to. Vegeta was right in his thinking of destroying the Fat Buu back after finishing off Kid Buu. "Buu did this," Chibi growled as she stood upright. "He's the one behind this.

"Well, now, what do we have here?" A voice from behind spoke.

Chibiko quickly turned to find the being that plagued her even after all these months: the monster that made her keep her distance from the good Buu; the creature that made her afraid of the dark again; Super Buu. He was in the form he had been in after absorbing Gohan right in front of her. His red eyes glared down into Chibi as he smirked his wicked grin at her "You!" Chibi shouted as she got into a defensive stance. "What did you do to my family?!"

"Weren't you listening to them before?" Buu questioned, a smirk ever-present on his face. He leaned back against the nearest tree. "They told you that what happened to them was your fault, remember? They're fates were sealed because of your failure."

"N-No." Chibi took a step back as Buu stepped forward. "T-That's not true. I…I know it's not true! I did everything I could to help them."

"Oh, really?" Buu took another one forward. "If you did everything you could, why did they still die?"

"I-I-!" Another step back and another step forward. She did everything she could to save them. She fought tooth and nail and nearly died herself, just trying to fight. "You killed them!"

"But you were there; you could've stopped me, but you failed to do anything! It's all because of you!"

"NO! It's not true!"

Chibi took another step back and tripped over a tree root that was sticking out of the ground. As she went to stand up, Buu fired a blast directly at her. Chibiko tried to shield herself by placing her arms up in front of her in what she knew was a futile attempt to protector herself. She waited for the inevitable blast to come. To her surprise, it never came. Slowly, Chibi opened her eyes to find that her 9-year old brother Daichi had jumped in the way of the attack. He now had a gaping hole in the side of his torso where he had been struck. The look of absolute pain was on his usually smiling face as he tried to keep standing. However, his legs gave out, and he came crashing to the ground.

"Look at that," Super Buu laughed after he saw he missed his initial target. "Your incompetence got your own brother killed."

"Daichi!" Chibiko cried as she rushed to her brother's side. She wasn't one for showing that much affection, but this had been the breaking for her. Everyone else had been telling her how she was to blame for everything going on, and here was Daichi, defending her and jumping in the way of an attack for her. She picked him up in her arms and tried not to cry. "Daichi, hold on! I-I'll help you!"

Daichi coughed up a bit of blood but smiled at his little sister. His eyes were not like the others; they were the normal black eyes he and everyone else in her family had. He just chuckled at her, not in a demeaning way or anything. "R-Run, Chibi," He quietly stuttered to her as he placed his somewhat bloody hand on hers. Then, the 9-year old boy slumped into her arms and stopped moving.

But she didn't run. She couldn't run. All she could do was scream.

"Chibi. Chibi! Chibi, wake up!"

Goku had felt Chibiko's power level fluctuating in the middle of the night. It was so wild that it had woken him from his deep sleep and made him wonder what could possibly be causing his daughter's power to rise and fall so erratically. Was she under attack? He went to Chinku and Chibiko's room and found one daughter was sound asleep while the other was twisting around in her sleep.

Recognizing what was going on, Goku ran to Chibi's bed and tried shaking her awake. Suddenly, the young girl's eyes snapped open, and she shot up awake. The little girl frantically looked around to make sure there was no danger. She was still shaking from head-to-toe even after verifying that she was not in immediate trouble. She did yelp when she saw her Dad, though, still unsure if she was sleeping or not.

"It's okay, Chibi. It was just a nightmare," Goku assured his daughter, whispering so as not to wake Chinku. (He didn't have to worry too much, though, since she seemed to sleep through Chibi's screams). He put a reassuring hand on Chibi's shoulder in an attempt to calm her down, and it seemed to do the trick, even if it was only a little bit.

As Chibi reeled over what had happened, she felt most of the overwhelming fear leaving her body. However, her mind still raced as her heart rate slowed. This was yet another nightmare she had had within the past five months. Why was she still being plagued by what had happened? Everyone else seemed perfectly fine, so why was she still being haunted by everything? There must be something wrong with me, Chibi thought to herself, burying her face in her knees, not saying a word to her Father as she did so.

Goku could tell something was bothering his youngest daughter and knew he had to do something about it; "Hey, you know what we need?" He said, interrupting Chibi's thinking.

"What?" Chibi questioned, not sure where her Father was going with this.

"Some hot chocolate!"

"Huh?" Hot chocolate? What was hot chocolate going to do? She would've been less confused if he had said a sparring match or even a flight around the mountains, but hot chocolate?

"Yeah, hot chocolate," Goku repeated with a smile. Before she could protest or press the issue further, Goku picked Chibiko up and carried her all the way downstairs to the kitchen on his shoulders. He sat her on one of the kitchen counters and then began rummaging through the cupboard for a pot and the hot chocolate packets. He filled the pot with water and warmed it up over the stove before grabbing two mugs and a bag of mini marshmallows. "How many marshmallows do you want?"

"…Just a spoon-full, please," Chibi replied, still confused by what her Father was doing.

"All right. I don't like a lot of marshmallows in my hot chocolate, either."

It didn't take long for the hot chocolate to be ready, and when it was, Goku poured a mug for himself and his daughter before adding the marshmallows in. He ended up leaning against the counter while Chibi continued to sit on it. As he sipped his hot chocolate, Chibi just stared into her own cup. She didn't quite understand the purpose of doing all of this. "Dad, what are we doing right now?" She finally asked him after a bit of silence.

"When Gohan and Chiyo were your age, they used to have nightmares all the time," Goku explained after one long sip, revealing a chocolate mustache on his lips. "Sometimes, they'd come down to the kitchen and I'd make some hot chocolate to help them feel better."

"Oh….." The girl swished the hot chocolate around in her cup before taking a sip for herself. It wasn't half bad. Not the best, but not out-right horrible either.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Goku asked his youngest daughter.

She shook her head. "Not right now." She did look over at her Father and pointed to her lip. "Also, you got a little….right there."

"Oh, thanks." Goku understood what Chibi meant and quickly wiped the cocoa from his lip. "All right. If you don't want to talk now, that's completely fine. We'll talk when you want to talk." He didn't want to push Chibi if she didn't want to talk about it, but a part of him wanted him to push his daughter for answers. Goku was well-aware of Chibi's string of nightmares, but he figured this one was especially bad considering the state he found the young girl in. Usually, whenever he checked on her, she quickly shrugged it off and told him to go back to bed, but not this time. No, this time, she looked petrified.

For the longest time, the two sat there drinking their hot chocolate in silence. The only sound was the pelting rain outside and the distance rolling thunder in the mountains. Every now and again, in the dimly lit kitchen, there was a flash of lighting. It blazed outside before quickly disappearing again.

After what seemed like an eternity, Chibi spoke, "Dad…do you ever think about mistakes you've made, and no matter how many times you try to forget them, your brain just pulls it up to remind you?"

"….This is about everything that happened with Buu, isn't it?" Goku pieced together. He knew that the Buu incident had been bugging Chibi more than the other kids. She seemed to take what happened in regards to Buu more personally than anyone else. I mean, she and Daichi helped him and Vegeta fight the evil Majin plaguing the earth in the final battle after all.

"It's my fault for not being stronger." Chibi tried her best not to tear up in front of Goku. The last thing she wanted was for her Dad to see her cry. However, small tears ran down her cheeks. "I let everyone die because I wasn't strong enough. I couldn't even become a Super Saiyan until Daichi almost died right in front of me! And even then, I was a pushover to Buu! He just kept taunting me, and I let him get in my head! If I had just been more focused-!"

"Chibiko," Goku interrupted his daughter before she went down the rabbit hole of self-blame. The fact that he even called her by her full name and not her nickname meant that what he was about to say would be serious. "Blaming yourself for what happened isn't going to help you. None of what happened was your fault. You can't blame yourself for what Buu did."

"It's not about what Buu did; it's about what I failed to do! I-"

"Chibi….Believe me, I've been down that road, sweetie. I know what you're going through right now."

"No, you-!" Chibiko paused before she finished that sentence. It never really dawned on her that her Father blamed himself for what happened and everything before that. He just always seemed so upbeat and optimistic that it never crossed her mind that he carried a burden of guilt of his own. Now he was admitting to her that he blamed himself for the events that occurred concerning Buu. "….You do know what I'm going through."

"We can't change what happened, but we can change how we view it going forward. If we look back and all we see are mistakes, then the past will continue to drag us down, and we'll never be able to go forward in life. Does that make sense?"

"….I think so." Never before had the young girl heard her Father speak like that. He wasn't one for small-talk either, but you could tell that there was this layer of brilliance buried beneath him, and this seemed to be it coming out. A small smile came to Chibi's face as she figured out what her Dad was trying to tell her. "Dad, I'm glad you're here."

"Glad to be here, Chibi," Goku said with a smile, giving Chibi a small side-hug.

Just then, the two heard footsteps coming down the stairs. They turned to see that Goten with his blanket training behind him. He was rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he came into the kitchen in his little blue pajamas.

"Goten, what are you doing up?" Goku asked the little boy.

"I had a bad dream," Goten squeaked out as he looked up at his Dad.

"I see," Goku said. He placed his mug down on the counter, went over to Goten, picked him up, and then put him on his left shoulder, just like he had done back at the world martial arts tournament. "I guess I'll have to make some more hot chocolate then."

"With lots of marshmallows?" Goten asked, getting all excited at having one of his favorite treats.

"As many marshmallows as you want," Goku told his son, who giggled in delight.

Just then, Daichi and Chinku also came downstairs. Daichi came down due to the smell of hot chocolate while Chinku came down after waking up to find Chibiko not in bed.

"I want a cup of hot chocolate too, Dad," Chinku stated.

"Me too!" Daichi declared.

"All right, all right," Goku told the two. "I'll make some more hot chocolate then."

"I'd make two more cups worth, Dad," Chibiko noted as Goku pulled out more packets.

"Why do you say that?" Goku questioned.

The young girl simply pointed to the doorway, and everyone turned to see a tired Gohan and Chiyo coming in. The two twin teens looked exhausted as they walked into the kitchen.

"What are you guys doing up so late?" Chiyo tried stifling a yawn.

"Wait, are you making hot chocolate?" Gohan realized, slightly waking from his tired state upon catching a whiff of the drinks. "We haven't done one of these late-night hot chocolate things in a long time."

"Yeah. It's been years," Chiyo confirmed, slightly waking after getting in a sniff for herself.

Before long, everyone was having a mug of hot chocolate and sitting around the dining room table.