*wipe brow* Wowies, more writing for me. This chap's mostly
fightingnessness… hope you enjoy! ~Vivi-sama
Chapter three
Kick, punch, dodge, attack. Kick, punch,
dodge, attack. Gohan repeated this over and over, training himself where
Goten and Pan had sparred the day before. The sun had risen a couple hours ago,
and he trained mindlessly, thinking of nothing but the loss of his Videl. Each
kick reigned in anger, each punch in rage. He dodged with guilt, and his
attacks were full of fury, powerful and uncontrollable. Kick, punch, dodge,
attack.
"Arg!" ChiChi stormed into Gohan's training
field, her clothes ripped and sweat streaming down her face. Gohan was taken
back with surprise. He hadn't even sensed her coming in his mindless training.
"Your tousan is going to get it!"
Gohan took a moment to get a trail of
thoughts back into his head before he answered. "What did Tousan do this time?"
ChiChi growled at the question. "Okay,
we're off relaxing in this hot spring, and all of a sudden, Vegeta comes out of
nowhere, and wants Gokou to spar with him. Gokou agrees, and jumps out of the
water - naked and all - in a hurry, grabs his clothes, and leaves! He didn't
even say goodbye! Ugh!" ChiChi clenched her fists. "Some sweet guy he turned
out to be! I had to walk all the way home through the forests, and it was NOT a
pleasant walk!"
"Wow, you sound like Bulma-san for a moment
there..." Gohan paused as him mother flashed her eyes angrily. "Ano...Here
Kaasan, let me get you some clean clothes," Gohan said hurriedly.
ChiChi smiled at her son, despite her
anger. "Iie, Gohan-chan, it's alright. I'll do it myself. I need to take a bath
anyway. It won't be as relaxing as the one in the hot spring should have
been, but it'll have to do." ChiChi headed inside, and Pan came out of the
house at the same time.
"Oh, Obaasan!" she cried at the sight of
ChiChi's ripped clothes. "What happened?"
ChiChi sighed. "It's a long story. I'll
tell you about it later, Pan-chan. But right now, I have to take a bath."
"Hai, ChiChi-san," Pan said. As ChiChi
trudged along into the house, Pan looked at her father seriously. "How is
everything, Touchan?"
Gohan shrugged. "Fine, I guess." He looked
around questioningly. "Hey, where's Goten-kun?"
"He's out on a date, remember?" Pan
reminded him. She shook her head sadly. "I tried to fix him up, but he wouldn't
let me." She sighed. "He would have looked so beautiful..."
Gohan smiled. "I'm sure he would have."
"Touchan?" Pan looked directly at her
father. "I...I want to tell you something."
Gohan's face turned serious. "Sure,
anything Pan-chan."
Pan cleared her throat, twitching her hands
uneasily as she turned to look at the ground. "I...I feel...so lost," she
whispered. Her face was innocent, but there was a sad confused look disturbing
her features. "I still don't believe Kaasan's really gone, but I know she
is...sometimes I can block out the fact that she's not here and have fun, but
then...it always comes back...back to haunt me..." Her shoulders shook, and Pan
stumbled blindly into Gohan's opened arms. "And...and I don't know what to do."
"Hai, Pan-chan, it's alright," Gohan
reassured her. "I feel that way too. Except I can't even block out one moment
and be not thinking about her. Well...only when I'm with you, Pan-chan."
"Really?" Pan gave her father a slight
smile. "I'm glad."
"Me too," Gohan said. "Yes...I'm
very...very glad."
"And sad?"
"And sad."
Father and daughter looked at one another
in close silence, the bond between them strengthening it's hold. They stood
there, silent and as still as the sky above. A breeze ruffled Pan's hair, and
Gohan ran a hand through it to settle it back down again. "Touchan?" Pan
whispered, breaking the silence.
Just as soft, Gohan replied, "What is it
Pan-chan?"
"Arigatou." Pan's eyes sparkled, and a
glimmer of brightness shimmered somewhere between the two. "I feel much better
now."
Gohan smiled, his eyes bright and blurry.
"Dou itashimashite, Pan-chan...dou itashimashite."
"I could stay here with you forever...I
feel so safe..." the black-haired girl told her father. "Demo...I'm getting
really hungry." A deep growl erupted from her stomach, and she wrinkled her
nose in embarrassment.
Gohan belted out a laugh, and looked his
daughter straight in the eye. "Your mother never really understood your
obsession with food. We always ate so much, and she could never cook enough."
He looked wistful, but with a grin, he pushed his daughter towards the house.
"Go pig yourself out."
"You mean you're not hungry?" Pan asked,
surprised.
"Iie, I'm fine," replied Gohan. He
shrugged. "I'll just train myself."
"Do you want me to spar with you?" inquired
Pan.
"Nani? Oh, no, that's okay," Gohan said.
"Go satisfy your stomach." As if on cue, Pan's stomach made another rumbling
noise.
With a sheepish smile, Pan said, "Hai,
Tousan."
"ChiChi should be finished her bath now;
maybe she'll cook something up for you if ask her."
Pan nodded, and gave a little wave. "See ya
later, Touchan!" She rushed into the house with a happy smile.
"Sayonara, Pan-chan," said Gohan. As soon
as his daughter had disappeared from sight, something in him changed. "Oh,
Videl..."
Eyes darkening, he sighed and continued his
mindless training.
~***~
"ChiChi-san!" Pan yelled, skipping upstairs
gleefully. "ChiChi-san!"
Pan flipped on the hallway light, peeking
into Gohan's former room. Books piled on top of each other in heaps beside the
desk. "Wow...I know you said that ChiChi-san made you study a lot when you were
younger, demo...that looks like a lot of studying!" Shaking her head,
she headed towards the next room.
"ChiChi-san?" Pan called out again. She heard a refrigerator door open, and rushed
downstairs, ready to satisfy her stomach. A thud sounded, and Pan stopped in
her tracks. An uneasy feeling fluttered inside her, and she quietly tip-toed to
the door of the kitchen. Whispering, she said, "ChiChi-san?"
Peeking inside, Pan muffled a scream. She
rushed to the lifeless body scattered across the floor, and rocked ChiChi's
shoulders back and forth in a desperate shake. "Obaasan! Obaasan!"
She turned to look at the still face,
unmoving and innocent. Unknowingly, tears fell on to ChiChi's body from her
only granddaughter, who wept for her loss.
"First Kaasan," Pan said through clenched teeth, "then Obaasan?!
Who's next? Goten-ojisan? Touchan? OJIISAN?!"
Pan let out a scream of frustration, and
Gohan came rushing into the room right after.
"Pan-chan! Are you alright? What's wrong?"
Gohan asked breathlessly. He looked at the floor and gasped without thinking.
In an instance, he was kneeling by her side. He grabbed ChiChi's wrist and
concentrated, waiting for something miraculous to happen...but nothing did.
"She's...gone."
~***~
Bouncing off his left hand, then his right
foot, Gokou dodged each blast, pivoting from one place to another.
"Aah!" screamed Vegeta with each powerful
blast he shot, his eyes darting, following Gokou's every move. He jumped up
behind him, only to find that Gokou had disappeared a split second before.
Growling, he blurred himself, darting upwards at an incredible speed.
Gokou paused mid-zanzoken, becoming silent
and still. Sensing Vegeta coming up from below him, he attacked him head on.
"Ka...me..."
A bolt of electricity splurged from his
hands, and a bright ball of energy formed in his open palms. Vegeta's eyes
widened in surprise for a moment before he powered up a counter-attack. Sparks
of energy zigzagged between his hands, and he let out growls of concentration.
"Ha...me..." Gokou opened his palms wider
as the energy grew, and his brows knitted in concentration as he got ready to
throw it. "HA!"
"Aah!" Vegeta's two balls of energy became
one as they spiraled together towards the oncoming attack. The clash of the two
energies collided in a huge explosion, as flashes of light screamed into the
air, and each warrior was blown back by the gigantic force. Sand from the
desert ground whirled in a treacherous typhoon, blurring the vision of both
saiya-jins. Gokou felt for Vegeta's ki, and charged.
Vegeta had already gotten a hold of Gokou's
presence, and led the lower-class saiya-jin in fierce hand-to-hand combat.
Dodging a punch, Vegeta kicked at Gokou's abdomen, who blurred and reappeared
behind him. Striking from his hands above his head, Gokou let out a cry as he
attacked. Vegeta managed to turn around just before Gokou's hands made contact,
but was instead smashed on his head and struck downwards. Recovering in
mid-air, he dove upward at a prodigious speed, grabbing Gokou's leg before he
could move and whirling him around in circles before he finally threw him to
the ground. Sweat dripped off his face, and veins bulged out of his bulky arms.
His lips curled in mockery and he wiped off his mouth as he watched Gokou hit
the ground with a large thud. "Is that the best you can do Kakarotto?!"
Below, Gokou turned over, laying on his
back. Getting to his feet, he looked up, a smile playing across his dirty face.
Without blinking, he wiped off a trickle of sweat as he answered his reply. "I
didn't come here to get beaten, Vegeta-san." He blurred, jumping from place to
place, so fast that Vegeta wasn't able to sense him.
"Kuso," muttered Vegeta, his haste
bringing him out of concentration. A slight shock passed through him, and he
felt Gokou's ki hurling towards him. He smirked, and did a quick powerup, a
flash of light thundering out of his body. "Final Flash!"
Gokou stopped abruptly in front of the
saiya-jin prince as a burst of energy exploded from within him in a terrifying
blast, and teleported himself to Trunks in an instant.
A purple-haired teen snapped his head up in
surprise. "Gokou-san!"
Panting slightly, the saiya-jin warrior
spoke quickly. "No time to explain, Trunks-kun. I just hope your tousan hasn't
blown up the whole planet." He looked around, and shrugged. "Nah, I guess it's
okay. Bai bai!" He felt for Vegeta's large ki, and teleported once again.
In an instant, he was back in the desert,
their universal sparring field. Glaring, Vegeta looked at him, anger flaring in
his eyes. "Damn you and your teleporting crap, Kakarotto," he growled as Gokou
appeared before him.
Gokou smiled despite his glare. "I see
you've learned how to control how much power you put into that attack. I'm
impressed."
Vegeta snorted. "And since when are you
not?"
"Ano..." Gokou paused, and scratched his
head in a boyish manner. Tilting his head slightly, he gave Vegeta an innocent
look. "Well Vegeta-san, sometimes you don't concentrate properly, so your anger
gives you power but not the ability to control it, so -"
"Kakarotto!" Vegeta turned to him,
his glare more intense. "I didn't ask for your opinion! And if I want it, then
I'll BEAT IT OUT OF YOU!"
Gokou's smile disappeared, and he sighed. Vegeta
smirked in response, his arms crossed as he physically stated his greater
presence. "Baka! You're such a waste of my time! You'd think you fight back
instead of running away with your stupid teleporting tricks. Sure, save Chikyuu
once or twice, but run away when you see an attack coming at you." Sighing,
Vegeta descended towards the ground, his chin up and his eyes a serious black.
"Some warrior you are. And a waste of breath, too."
Gokou followed the saiya-jin's lead,
landing silently as his hair was whipped back by the wind. Vegeta eyed him
unapprovingly. "I only asked you to spar with me so I could get a proper
workout."
"And I intend to give you one." Gokou
yelled out a scream, his hair flaring upwards in spikes of gold. Pale green
eyes smile at the saiya-jin prince of Vegeta-sei, then grew serious and took a
battle stance.
"Took you long enough." Vegeta clenched his
fists in concentration, and his hair transformed into a shocking pale blond. "Ha!"
A golden aura surrounded him, and dust swirled in a frenzy, pulled by his
powerful force.
And again, the two engaged themselves in
brutal battle, only this time, their speed was even more unimaginable. Never
pausing or taking their eyes off one another, hits were taken and dodged, and
nasty comments flew through the air. Blasts from each warrior brightened the
sky, flashing light as bright as the sun above.
"Tousan!" came a desperate cry.
"Vegeta-san!"
"Ha - nani?" Gokou paused mid-blast.
"Gohan?"
"Tousan!" The black-haired boy shook as if
he battled with himself in a desperate attempt not to cry, flying upwards to
his father. "Tousan! Kaasan's...kaasan's..."
Gokou grabbed his son by the shoulders,
giving him a slight shake. "What's wrong with ChiChi?" he yelled. "Gohan?
Gohan! Answer me!"
"She's..." Gohan gulped, his eyes misted.
"She's...something bad happened to her...just like Videl..."
Gokou let go, shock overwhelming him. "You
mean she's..."
"Passed into another dimension?" supplied
Vegeta, his blank, fierce look never changing.
"It's...it's not a time to joke,
Vegeta-san," Gokou said sharply, his hair returning to it's normal black, as he
returned the Vegeta's glare. "My...she's...ChiChi's...Ah!" screamed the saiya-jin, blasting
off into the direction of his home.
Vegeta looked behind him, eyeing Gokou's bright aura disappearing into
the distance. He smirked, then turned to look at Gohan. "Well? You're not going
to follow him?"
Gohan faced the prideful warrior, his eyes
blank and unmoving. "I'm going to go...think. Sayonara, Vegeta-san," he said
softly, turning away.
"Going off to cry?" Vegeta sneered in a
gruff voice. "I don't recommend it. It makes you look weak." Without another
word, he took off in different direction.
Gohan watched him leave, his eyes still
filled with a wet nothingness. "No. I'm not going to cry, Vegeta-san," he
called softly after him. He shook his head, drops of water falling out of his
eyes. "I'm not going to cry at all."
