Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball. I wish I did, but unfortunately ,someone else got to it first. Damn.

A note of caution from the author:

This is not to be considered ordinary fanfiction , and is to be read with a careful eye. The simple-minded should avoid reading any further, as should those who do not enjoy a complex plot now and then. Keep in mind that this tale was not originally intended to be read by a large audience, and that at times it may become very twisted and slightly confounding.


----Murasaki


......One of the Enemy......
A n Epic tale by Murasaki Iiro
Chapter One:Reflections

The sky seems so empty during the daylight hours. The winter sun, so fierce and bright, fills the horizon with its blinding white rays. The glare scatters and mirrors off the freshly fallen snow, painting the finishing strokes onto the veil of illusion.

But when the sun sinks below the jagged outline of the mountains, and the moon is high above the earth..............

The illusion is gone.........and the heavens remove their luminous mask.

Vast, infinite, and filled with stars........and worlds..........and people........

One can only dream of the fascinating and complex lives that begin and end in the great beyond...........

Each of us is so small, so insignificant ,in the scheme of the universe..........

How many people are living and dying, fighting and struggling, sacrificing and surviving, basking in the glory of victory, and tallying what has been lost?.....

They are as numerous as the stars themselves..........

As time wears on, the wheel of destiny is remains a constant force. Good fortune turns sour over time, and tragedy can open doors to new opportunities.

Stars die and are reborn from their own ashes time and time again.........

What things befall us during our lifetime are not in our control.

But how we choose to face those things is the true judge of our strength and character.......

A young woman stood with her face pressed to the window, watching the stars pass by, tiny white spots painted on the canvas of the universe . There was something wonderful and fascinating about the abyss of space and stars that lay before her. If only the glass would shatter and she could float into the emptiness, discard all of her memories, and drift, painless, for eternity.

In truth, she was barely more than a child, but she had already lived two lives; the first, filled with fortune and opportunity, the second full of injustice and disaster. Her eighteen years felt like a thousand.... She was already tired of living.........there was no promise left for her in the future. All of the luck and goodness in store had been wasted on her early years, a time that she could barely recall now........

I can remember a girl...............She was as lovely as the full moon............She had bright eyes and a ringing laugh.............Her beauty blossomed like a desert flower as she grew into a pillar of pride and confidence..........

She was still beautiful, for all of her suffering, but she had changed much in three long years. Her flawless skin, milk white and soft, had become rough in the boiling sun. Her long ,slender fingers, once delicate and smooth, were cracked and dry, her fingernails caked with dirt. Her limbs, which had been so thin and graceful, were sinewy and strong from days of heavy work, fit for a grown man. Her eyes ,which had once the luster of polished citrine, were cloudy and blank. Her hair, the color of the pale violet blossoms that open after the rain, was wound into a crown of tight braids. She longed for it to be soft and silken, so that she could set it free from its plaited confinement.

But she and I are not the same........

The young woman knew she had evolved into a strange and different person, one without resolve or tolerance. The pretty things she had once taken delight in were of no use to her. Jewelry and fine objects were of little value to anyone now. The copper bangles that had danced on her wrists to a lively jingling song were melted into ore, and traded for far less than they were once worth.

I am a fugitive in my own land, and I flee from my own shadow. ..............


She could not be a martyr for her own people. Others had died in more terrible ways she could bear to think of. She knew she could be something less noble.........a sacrifice for the honor of her family. What better way to meet her end than at the hands of the man who had killed her father and grandfather. And glorious her end would be, like that of an epic heroine!

Goku.......his name is Goku.........a demon's name.........

A last,splendid instant would fill the space of three barren years with a golden blaze! And so, he would once again be victorious...........and she would have achieved an end worthy of her stature.

But why does my heart sink when I think of such things?...........

Perhaps it is my own selfishness that tells me to turn back.............

It seemed then as if she was fighting herself. Her proud half, demanding that she die; her undisciplined side, beseeching her to live........

I tremble like grass at the slightest breeze.........

She refused to show her own growing cowardice. Cousins younger than she were willing to follow her to a premature end, and she could not make an example of her courage if she was found lacking in it.

It is at times such as this that I wonder if my father was afraid when he knew that he could not turn back...............

Did his hands shake as he faced destiny? Did he know what would become of us?

As she weighed the future, a quiet voice whispered in the language of souls........

She felt its message surge through the angry blood in her veins.

You are not alone ..........

Her mother stood sullenly behind her, eyes downcast.

The woman and her daughter were alike in both figure and face ; reed-thin, with lofty cheekbones and nimble legs .

But it seemed that something vast stood between them............something that they were both unable to describe.........

The woman wove her sable hair through pale fingers slowly, as she stared at the floor. The tears in her eyes had dried like the river delta in a decade-long drought. There was not enough left to form a solitary droplet to quench her fears. Her eyes burned with the poison of woe.

I have cried so many tears for my family ,that it seems I have none left to cry for myself............

For I am a woman close to death; I am she who was too scared so stay behind; I am she who is too brave to let her daughter perish alone...........

In her appearance she was timid, her cowardice hidden behind a pretty countenance. As her daughter stood tall and proud, her own panic humbled her .She was at the mercy of fate. Why was she chosen to suffer such strife? An instant of security and happiness......... and in the flicker of an eyelash, all the entropy of the universe came crashing down upon her.

I have nothing left to lose.If I had, I would give it gladly to save my daughter. I would betray anyone ......... simply to save her from this end!

Veritably, she had lost far more than she could afford, in her thirty-six years of living. Thirty-six years of little but catastrophe seemed like an age.

Piece by piece, they chisel away at my sanity!

Her stubborn daughter was all that remained of her father's legacy. Now it had seemed that she had lost the perseverance that was his prized attribute.

What price must I pay to smile again?

Years ago she had lost her young son to assassins. If only she had known that it was a prelude to the greater tragedy that would befall them. Oh how foolish it seemed to weep for him now! .........

At any given hour I can see a woman weeping in the street, a confused child clinging to her leg, wondering where his sisters and brothers have gone.........

In the night, I hear a man shout ,because he has found five bloated bodies washed up on the riverbank..............

And there are the living statues,who stare blankly at the passers by, struck silent by the horrors they have seen............

Her world was littered with the debris of turmoil. If only her husband had returned alive. Then she could have tolerated what was to come.........

......He could transform tears into laughter with a simple smile...........even the most boorish, stubborn men had only kind words for him............

......When the only life he knew began to crumble, he never complained. He pretended that he was not afraid. Nobody could fathom the magnitude of his anger and his shame ,lying dormant from the past...........

........And so he fled when his people needed him the most , chasing a legend that only a boy would believe..........

........ Perhaps I am foolish........

........But I can hear his voice still..........

........telling me ......

........that I will live to see tomorrow....


A third woman, veiled by shadow, had secluded herself from the other s. Unlike her granddaughter, she did not question the honor in her decision. Unlike her daughter-in law, she was not riddled with uncertainty. She saw her path clearly before her.

Her eyes were slate gray, lined with black khol, enhancing their taunting fierceness. Within the inky pupils blazed the sparks of a well-stoked rage , the hot tendrils flaming from her leaden heart. The apples of her white cheeks were flushed with burning anguish.Wild burgundy waves, tangled from lack of maintenance, sprouted haphazardly from her scalp. Once her value had been summed by her beauty, her pure heart, her uncommon brilliance......

But the white sun has blinded us to beauty...........

Drought shrivels the spirit...........

Pain dulls the senses..............

The few who had known her well enough to realize her cleverness and enthusiasm ,were ashes in the wind now, and those who had survived were too numbed by panic to remember.

As others had forgotten her, she had forgotten herself. She had allowed her mind become an hollow cavity where bitterness grew rampant like fungus. Anger, like smoke, filled her lungs and poisoned her blood.

How I wish that I had gone mad long ago, when others would have.....So that in my head, I would see the dead walk among the living ,and truly believe that it was real........So that I could speak to no one, and hear my son answer back........So that I would not know my own name, and that I had once been the wife of a king!

Eroded by grief, her spirit had sunken , like a stone in water. The emptiness possessed the very core of her being, leaving her with a sole and macabre comfort.

Revenge.

She knew she was cruel to desire such things. It would only transform her into what she so fervently despised.

It would transform her into an animal, a madwoman who thrived on suffering.

It will make me like the force that calls herself the Empress, the being that feeds on my hatred. It will make me like she who follows me, while I am awake and while I sleep. It will make me like she who ordered the death of my young grandson eight long years ago. It will make me like she who murdered those loyal to my husband , then hunted their wives, their children , their brothers and their friends.

.....But the woman had been twisted fatally by her own thoughts.

She did not care if she died. She did not care if her her son's wife or his beloved only daughter perished with her.

She did not care that her living son, her elder son, the image of his father ,would surely follow her out of duty . He had fought Goku once, to appease his own hunger for retribution, and barely escaped with his life. He would try, as any loyal son would, to prevent the inevitable. And like all those who spoke of revenge, he would fail.

Every vein in my body pulses to the rhythm of my vengeance!

I cannot escape it........

I will give my life so that one of my foes will taste the rage that poisons me.......

.......And so that the other will not have the pleasure of wiping my blood from her hands!

It is unfair that some must live their lives beaten by hardships and defeat ,while others are rich ,free and have only tasted the sweetness of victory.

It is unfair that children of one world can play games of war with sticks and stones, while the children of another must cover their ears to muffle the sounds of battle.

It is unfair that one man can grow strong and healthy, eating more than his share at every meal, while another man must chew on dry grass, dreaming of a loaf of bread.

Some receive more than they deserve, and others must compensate by deserving, yet receiving nothing.

This is the way of all things.

In the heart of the Japanese countryside, a timeworn house sat atop a snowy hill. The aged, red roof tiles had cracked, and more than a century of rains had washed away their rich color. The farmlands that bordered the property had produced nothing but grass and weeds since the days of the samurai, and the forest had slowly begun to take back its domain.

Still, for all of its faults, the house was friendly and at ease in its lonely surroundings. Electric lights omitted a lively glow from the front rooms, and the sound of tipsy laughter burst from an open window.

For that night, all of the hostility among the revelers had been forgotten, their furious jealousies hidden. They had promised amnesty to one another, until sunrise. A prince painfully forced a smile at a commoner, and a loner spoke cautiously with a man half his size.

In the attic room, a boy nestled deep into a nest of pillows and blankets. Since eight o'clock, he had been banned from the festivities and condemned to a darkened bedroom. It had been three hours since, but he was still wide awake, ear pressed against the wall vent, listening for the secrets grown people tell.

He was the most fortunate of spies, for the secrets he heard were of the best quality, ripe for sneering, gasping, laughing, and crying.

".......walked in on him, stark naked.........."

"......She didn't really know him very well at all. Didn't stop her ......."

"......could have died right then when I saw......."

"......was bitten by a rabid wolf. Had to cart him off to the doctor. Too late for that poor bastard, though........"

For the first time in more than two years, he felt at ease. He would have been glad if life had continued in that same, predictable fashion. There was something ordinary about eavesdropping on one's elders. It was something that every curious child did.

Normalcy, even if it was short-lived, brought him an unpretentious joy.

But there is nothing ordinary about me, is there?

Ordinary boys have not seen the shadow of doom, or tasted their own blood as it rose from their lungs.

Ordinary boys can choose their own paths, unburdened by the sins of an entire universe.

Ordinary boys must learn not to always think of themselves. I have made sacrifices and taken risks, since I was old enough to understand what they were.

Instead, I was chosen to live an extraordinary life. And like my father, I am forever paying the price for a destiny I do not want,and power I do not need.

As his eyes grew heavy with impending slumber, he uttered his last thought aloud.

"If my life were in my own hands, I would choose to be anything other than a hero. What use is there to be loved by others, if you cannot love yourself?"



The Author's Last Word: Buckle your seatbelts, readers. It's going to be a bumpy night.

- Murasaki