Dear Someone,

Hi again! Sorry it took so long this time, what with summer vacation and FF.net crashing, but here it is. Thanks again for all the reviews!

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From Hell, With Love

Dear Someone,

I have to get out. I can't take it anymore, being locked here with nothing to do or see. I need to feel the sun on my face, to smell the green things growing under an endless sky. I want to fly again in complete freedom, something that I have so rarely enjoyed in my lifetime, and not at all since my death.

I remember discovering I could fly. Suppose you were positive that you were going to die from a fall so long you even had time to think about your imminent destruction. And something inside you screams out against this certainty, pushing it away into impossibility. Only birds can fly, I had known for a fact until that day when I felt my will reaching out around me, buoying me upwards as lightly as one of the feathers from the wing of just such a bird. I too could fly! I wasn't going to die because I could fly!

"I'll live forever," I remember thinking. Nothing could touch me. I could fly!

Silly it seems now, and seemed then, when after what seemed only minutes, I felt my strength begin to weaken. I had to leave my beautiful joy up in my beautiful sky as I faltered and landed none too gently among some trees below. I was myself again: fast, strong, fierce, and miserable.

I like to think that it was I up in those clouds, free and happy, caught up in the dizzying joy of flight. I like to think that's the real me.

But it's not. The second I touched the ground, I remembered my hate, my revenge, my pain. I remembered myself.

That will inside me, that will to live, it was no longer the pure thing it had been on that cliff: it was twisted and joyless, a

canker eating away at me inside.

It was simple again: a different kind of simple. I had to kill Goku. Who was Goku? I didn't have the slightest idea. But I'd know him when I saw him, or my father would through my eyes. I could feel his sudden anger washing over me. How dare his son know joy?

But his son did know flight, and that would come in handy.

I began to travel the world, staying longer in places I found I enjoyed, perhaps establishing a sort of "home", where I could go rest, tend whatever injuries I had sustained, and have some peace and quiet for a time. I wandered across continents, through the Himalayas, the Gobi Desert, into the deepest Indian jungles and up onto the barren flats of Siberia. That was rare though; I've always preferred the warm places to the cold.

Upon one of my long journeys through China I found a poster pasted to a telephone pole. It advertised in several languages the World Martial Arts Tournament taking place upon a lone island no great distance away. I noted this with mild interest, reading over the marketing jargon coolly. "Will you be the one to defeat the current champion, Tienshinhan? Watch the runner up, Son Goku, try his luck in hand-to-hand combat! Come! Claim the title of Champion of the World today!"

Goku. Son Goku was going to be there! This was the chance I had been waiting for. I was entering in this tournament.

It was an easy decision to make. If I won, I could kill Goku and be free of my father's influence forever. If I lost, Goku would summarily kill me, and I would also be free of my father. I would die as my own man. So either way, I would win, but I would naturally prefer life. Besides, I was much stronger than my father had been. It should have been easy.

That night I fell asleep, resting up for the big day. In my dreams, I saw myself standing triumphant over a fallen Goku. It was a prophecy. I believed completely that I would win.

The problem with prophecy, however, is that you only see fragmented pieces of events. I saw myself standing tall above Goku, but I didn't see that seconds later, he had risen to fight again. Oh sure, the other fights had been easy. I had destroyed most of my opponents. But Goku was another matter. Just when I thought I had won, he came back as strong as ever. That was an amazing fight that day. We strove against one another for survival, each believing that if they lost, their life was forfeit.

Finally, it was I who fell, unable to rise again. I could feel the blood pouring from my injuries. They would be fatal soon enough, if I wasn't able to heal them quickly. I knew that I wouldn't be fast enough, exhausted as I was from my last attack. The crowd, or what was left of the crowd, seemed quiet but for the cries of "Serves you right, you monster!" and the like. No one was about to lift a finger to help me.

At least I didn't think so. I heard a soft voice come from above me, the harshness of battle completely gone from its gentle tones. Son Goku knelt by my head with his hand stretched out. "Here," he said, "Eat this. It'll make you feel better." He proffered a small rounded bean, and when he saw that I was unable to take it, he pushed it gently into my mouth. I chewed and swallowed, unsure of what was happening. A moment passed and I lay there, dying, when suddenly I felt strength flowing into my limbs. My wounds closed themselves up, and miraculously, all the pain was gone.

Stunned, I leaped up to look directly into Goku's gently smiling face. "What did you do?" I demanded of him, pure confusion setting in.

"I gave you a Senzu bean. It heals you instantly. Isn't that great?"

That only confused me more. "Why?"

"You didn't deserve to die."

Mercy. It was something completely foreign to me. And I was suddenly angry. Son Goku had spoiled my perfect plans. How could he let me live? Didn't he know better? So instead of thanking him for helping me live, I snarled a death threat and flew away.

The look of confusion on his face must have mirrored my own.

It was such a long flight home. Long enough, in fact, to lift my spirits a little. Maybe Goku really did do me a favor by letting me live. Life wasn't all bad. How can one think of death while flying? There are so many other better things to see and feel. The wind stinging your face ever so slightly as it rushes by, the scream of the gulls as they dip and soar, the play of the setting sun upon the ocean... all these things are much more important than anything else in my life.

Who knows? Maybe, someday, I'll fly again.

From Hell, with love,

Piccolo Daimao