WINDSTORMchapter6
Rabbit in your headlights pt.2
I'm a rabbit in your headlights
scared of the spotlight
you don't come to visit
I'm stuck in this bed
Trunks wandered along the once was battlefield that surrounded him. Those walls, that ground, that sky...had seen his triumph over the Jinzouningen, their total vanishing from the world of the living. They were history.
If he thought it over, he found out that he didn't really love the place so much. The reason why he kept on coming here time after time was another feeling, one whose meaning he couldn't properly grasp, but that maybe could go under the name of peace of mind. Peace of mind, yeah...the one thing he was looking for. A thing that, for a reason or the other, always kept on staying out of his reach. Whenever he thought he could touch it with his fingertips, he felt it slowly slipping away, like in a dream, only the smallest bit left for him to find . Here.
It didn't make him forget, because one can never forget such things as the ones he'd gone through. But for a moment , just one, he could see Gohan's face smiling at him when he closed his eyes, and hear his voice just as he'd known it, and what he said was: well done, boy.
That day it had been different from all the other battles he'd ever faced in his life.
Whenever he'd fought before, he'd always kept in control: a thorough master of his mind, every single reaction down to his heartbeat kept in check and under clear sight, like if he could get some harm from loosening even just a little the connection to his rational self.
But not that day.
When he caught sight of the cyborgs he'd let himself go completely. A new strength, never experienced before, seemed to envelop him from the outside and penetrate him in the depths without him summoning it or even just wishing for it: there it was, and there was nothing anybody could do with it, least of all the cyborgs, whom he'd doomed to death a long time ago.
It flared around his body, coming in waves in and out of him , almost tangible , concretizing in a flickering yellow aura that burned him from head to toe in roaring rage, nourished by all the hatred and pain he'd felt up to that day.
They were the source for his power, a power he was aware of now more than ever.
And as he entered the battlefield and faced his enemies for what was going to be the last time, he knew he'd win.
And oh, what a savage pleasure killing Juunanagou and Juuhachigou, tearing them apart, blasting them into pieces! It was animal, violent, merciless, instinctive, it was Saiyajin blood singing savagely in his veins, it was the true legacy that had been passed down through his father and onto him, it was it was him.
That day, for the first time, he felt whole.
For the very first time, the human half of him and the saiyajin half blended together perfectly, mixed in a unique, complete being, instead of fighting harshly and trying to overwhelm each other like they had done before.
Not split onto two, but an organic, perfectly self-conscious entity. He felt so alive!
And now, two of him again. He could never get used to it. The only living being with Saiyajin blood left in the whole universe, and yet so very human in his physical appearance, values, culture, behavior...too attached to his human part to just let it go, too harsh to harmonize with it, he was the weirdest mixture he'd ever heard of.
He felt doomed to forever live within this contradiction.
Thin rubber gloves
She laughs when she's crying
She cries when she's laughing
His skin was stinging with static, making him nervous. He wondered around a bit, stepping in and out the wrecked houses, like he was trying to find a source for his uneasiness, but in vain. He cast glances here and there into the abandoned rooms, wondering how life could have been when there were still happy people living there. Well, maybe not all of them were happy, but at least they were anything at all.
Now, instead, not a living soul left. Not even one...he tried to feel for any ki around, but obviously he found no one.
That's when he had the unlucky idea to turn the next corner and look down at his feet, and so he saw her.
She shot out smack in front of him, lacerating the calm of the air, her shape barely more than colors blurring: a lightening.
Trunks was shaken violently, his heart missing a bit. He couldn't mistake what he saw in the instant before she disappeared. She had big, almond-shaped yellow eyes, too tilted in her childish face, a messed-up mop of short dark ruffled hair, and she was small and bony. She wore the same round golden earrings as Juunanagou and Juuhachogou did, twinkling in the sunlight.
He needed to look no longer: she could as well have had "Red Ribbon" printed all over herself. She was the hyper girl, the one who had hurt his mother, a jinzouningen like the ones he has loathed all those years. But yet he wanted to see it: the red ribbon-shaped mark tattooed on the back of her left shoulder, the taint that was enought to make him consider the idea of killing in cold blood any being who was so miserable to bear ir.
And for that reason alone he couldn't let her go like that.
She heard him hissing through the air like a bullet behind her back and cursed herself for being so unable not to lose her nerve like she did. Though she had a considerable speed on her side, she was perfectly aware that that could have been not enough to escape him. And gosh, he must have seen me quite well, she thought, he's probably pursuing me to tell me a thing or two about artificial humans and then...who knows what is gonna happen then? He will probably try to get rid of me before I can harm anyone. And hell, he's not completely wrong on that point. If he only knew what I am looking for...huh, he'd probably kill me much faster then. Shit! Why do I always have to get myself like this?
Wind, heat, breathing isn't enough to supply your lungs with all the oxygen they need, run, don't stop: if you do you'll be dead.
Don't ask yourself anything, this is not the time to ask, you don't even know why you do it, so just do it and shut up.
You're a swallow, you're an arrow, you're a bullet to the sky, or maybe you're just a frightened rabbit running for your life, no matter what you are, just run!
Close your eyes when they hurt with the wind and sand, you don't need to see to put your feet one after another and go on, force the life through your nostrils, you need it. You need your life.
My blood is thickening in my veins, I wonder why I am so crazy, when i perfectly know that I cannot reach her this way.
It could go on for days and days like this and I don't care. She's beyond human, for a moment I fed a hope so absurd: I hoped that she was like me. I never told my mother, but what makes me different from anyone else I know - my hybrid nature - has often been a burden for me. Like when I found myself the only one capable of changing the past, fighting the cyborgs, changing this world to a better place.
I've found myself alone instead. I know what she is, but my mind refuses to admitt it. She won't stop. She won't tire. She should be dead. She's a cyborg.
And she hurt my mother. She made her have that accident. Momma could have been killed. This is the thing that enrages me most. I wanna see her in that face and ask her why she'd do it, what she was looking for that day. I wanna ask her why she came into our house and stole all those things. Because I'm sure it's been her now.
What does she want to do with them? What is she planning? I'm sure it's nothing good.
The chase lasted long, neither of the two seeming willingly to surrender and let go. They ran through the streets of the wrecked town, an abandoned car still showing here and there, and then out of the asphalt and into the country, where the once cultivated fields were now a jungle of weeds. They ran through a small woods, making the birds fly away precipitously at their passage, and once again in the open, far away from the remains of the human dwellings, madding like they were happy, wild and free in the summer sun. Its rays were burning hot through crystal-clear air, and everything was bright. If the world had had to start over that very day, the weather couldn't have been more perfect.
A thought reached Trunks in a moment, the thought of how stupid he'd been not to fly. She was faster than him on foot, but what about in the air? Maybe she didn't even know how to levitate, it was a good chance.
The next moment he was airborne and there, at an inch or little more from his fingers, there was her small shoulder. Just one more effort, just a move...Yay!
When he finally set his hands on her they were crossing a dry field, all covered up in yellow withered grass. They both fell to the ground and rolled along in the dust, raising whirlpools and clouds of it and covering themselves in blades of dry grass and earth, Trunks struggling to block the girl and the girl struggling hard to break free. Geez, she was strong. She kicked, she scratched, she bit, always roaring in rage; and to fight she used every part of her body: the harder she could hit him with it, the better. Like if that wasn't enough, she was astonishingly agile. Her body wasn't made of the same matter as all the others; Trunks swore he saw once or twice her limbs and spine bending in a position he'd never have thought of. It was something like fighting with a rabid wildcat, twisting and hissing, and even the claw-marks that it cost him were much the same.
Finally he was able to push her belly-down in the grass, the girl still twisting in his grip and seeking desperately for a way to escape. "Let me go" she hissed under her breath.
Trunks was surprised that the girl could even speak a human language at all. Juunanagou and Juuhachigou did talk, that was true, but they didn't seem to intend language like common people did. What they said alone counted. Whenever someone implored mercy from them, they pretended they didn't understand, or maybe really didn't. Being made of steel in the body had maybe hardened as well their hearts.
So she spoke. But he didn't care about that now. He wanted to see the mark. Show him the mark, and her life was over. He searched with feverish eyes her left shoulder, but it was covered by her clothes, and just when he was about to take her simple tank top by the corner and slide it down, she arched her hips hard under him and was able to spin around to face him. But she couldn't free herself like she was trying to do, because before she could do it he pinned her firmly to the ground once more, his hands on her shoulders.
He locked his eyes in hers, his hard, blue gaze meeting frightened yellow eyes.
Frightened?
No, he thought to himself. He knew jinzouningen by now, they didn't feel things like people made of meat did. They were never sleepy, tired, or hungry. They didn't know pain and obviously they felt no fear.
He hated her with the depths of his very being just for being like that, artificial; he needed no other reason.
He'd put his hands to her throat and break her windpipe, yes, that's what he would do. In his delirious thoughts he was getting lost, no longer realizing where he really was and what his former purpose had been. His saiyajin part was fighting to break free.
But somehow he was able to regain control of his rational mind, and he realized what it was that restrained him from doing so. Like she had guessed his intentions and knew she couldn't do anything to escape his grip, the girl wasn't making resistance any longer, limp and motionless like a rag doll. He was afraid of his savage part now, he felt like killing a child. What made it worst was that she really looked like it.
An unexpected thought struck his mind while he was looking down at her: how long had she been like that? He remember how Juuhachigou's face, which he kept constantly on looking at, never seemed to change throughout the years. And he remembered how he sometimes felt strangely attracted by her physical appearance, and how it made him hate her all the more, because he couldn't conceive how such a pretty girl could have a core like hers of ice and frozen metal.
Now, the face of the girl under him was the one of a frightened child. She looked almost sweet. But he thought even more that he should not be misled by her appearance. How could she be any different from her colleagues after all? He hesitated, not really knowing what to do. And it was this hesitation that got him lost.
His grip loosened for a moment and without losing time she took advantage of that, freeing one of her arms and slapping him hard in the face. The move surprised Trunks so much-he'd expected a punch, a karate move to his throat, or anything like that-that he completely lost any control on the girl's twisting body, that finally was able to get completely rid of his hold and regain freedom.
She immediately got up to her feet, and , after casting an angry glance at him, she turned her back to him and disappeared, as fast as she could.
Song lyrics by Unkle, "Rabbit in your headlights"
Rabbit in your headlights pt.2
I'm a rabbit in your headlights
scared of the spotlight
you don't come to visit
I'm stuck in this bed
Trunks wandered along the once was battlefield that surrounded him. Those walls, that ground, that sky...had seen his triumph over the Jinzouningen, their total vanishing from the world of the living. They were history.
If he thought it over, he found out that he didn't really love the place so much. The reason why he kept on coming here time after time was another feeling, one whose meaning he couldn't properly grasp, but that maybe could go under the name of peace of mind. Peace of mind, yeah...the one thing he was looking for. A thing that, for a reason or the other, always kept on staying out of his reach. Whenever he thought he could touch it with his fingertips, he felt it slowly slipping away, like in a dream, only the smallest bit left for him to find . Here.
It didn't make him forget, because one can never forget such things as the ones he'd gone through. But for a moment , just one, he could see Gohan's face smiling at him when he closed his eyes, and hear his voice just as he'd known it, and what he said was: well done, boy.
That day it had been different from all the other battles he'd ever faced in his life.
Whenever he'd fought before, he'd always kept in control: a thorough master of his mind, every single reaction down to his heartbeat kept in check and under clear sight, like if he could get some harm from loosening even just a little the connection to his rational self.
But not that day.
When he caught sight of the cyborgs he'd let himself go completely. A new strength, never experienced before, seemed to envelop him from the outside and penetrate him in the depths without him summoning it or even just wishing for it: there it was, and there was nothing anybody could do with it, least of all the cyborgs, whom he'd doomed to death a long time ago.
It flared around his body, coming in waves in and out of him , almost tangible , concretizing in a flickering yellow aura that burned him from head to toe in roaring rage, nourished by all the hatred and pain he'd felt up to that day.
They were the source for his power, a power he was aware of now more than ever.
And as he entered the battlefield and faced his enemies for what was going to be the last time, he knew he'd win.
And oh, what a savage pleasure killing Juunanagou and Juuhachigou, tearing them apart, blasting them into pieces! It was animal, violent, merciless, instinctive, it was Saiyajin blood singing savagely in his veins, it was the true legacy that had been passed down through his father and onto him, it was it was him.
That day, for the first time, he felt whole.
For the very first time, the human half of him and the saiyajin half blended together perfectly, mixed in a unique, complete being, instead of fighting harshly and trying to overwhelm each other like they had done before.
Not split onto two, but an organic, perfectly self-conscious entity. He felt so alive!
And now, two of him again. He could never get used to it. The only living being with Saiyajin blood left in the whole universe, and yet so very human in his physical appearance, values, culture, behavior...too attached to his human part to just let it go, too harsh to harmonize with it, he was the weirdest mixture he'd ever heard of.
He felt doomed to forever live within this contradiction.
Thin rubber gloves
She laughs when she's crying
She cries when she's laughing
His skin was stinging with static, making him nervous. He wondered around a bit, stepping in and out the wrecked houses, like he was trying to find a source for his uneasiness, but in vain. He cast glances here and there into the abandoned rooms, wondering how life could have been when there were still happy people living there. Well, maybe not all of them were happy, but at least they were anything at all.
Now, instead, not a living soul left. Not even one...he tried to feel for any ki around, but obviously he found no one.
That's when he had the unlucky idea to turn the next corner and look down at his feet, and so he saw her.
She shot out smack in front of him, lacerating the calm of the air, her shape barely more than colors blurring: a lightening.
Trunks was shaken violently, his heart missing a bit. He couldn't mistake what he saw in the instant before she disappeared. She had big, almond-shaped yellow eyes, too tilted in her childish face, a messed-up mop of short dark ruffled hair, and she was small and bony. She wore the same round golden earrings as Juunanagou and Juuhachogou did, twinkling in the sunlight.
He needed to look no longer: she could as well have had "Red Ribbon" printed all over herself. She was the hyper girl, the one who had hurt his mother, a jinzouningen like the ones he has loathed all those years. But yet he wanted to see it: the red ribbon-shaped mark tattooed on the back of her left shoulder, the taint that was enought to make him consider the idea of killing in cold blood any being who was so miserable to bear ir.
And for that reason alone he couldn't let her go like that.
She heard him hissing through the air like a bullet behind her back and cursed herself for being so unable not to lose her nerve like she did. Though she had a considerable speed on her side, she was perfectly aware that that could have been not enough to escape him. And gosh, he must have seen me quite well, she thought, he's probably pursuing me to tell me a thing or two about artificial humans and then...who knows what is gonna happen then? He will probably try to get rid of me before I can harm anyone. And hell, he's not completely wrong on that point. If he only knew what I am looking for...huh, he'd probably kill me much faster then. Shit! Why do I always have to get myself like this?
Wind, heat, breathing isn't enough to supply your lungs with all the oxygen they need, run, don't stop: if you do you'll be dead.
Don't ask yourself anything, this is not the time to ask, you don't even know why you do it, so just do it and shut up.
You're a swallow, you're an arrow, you're a bullet to the sky, or maybe you're just a frightened rabbit running for your life, no matter what you are, just run!
Close your eyes when they hurt with the wind and sand, you don't need to see to put your feet one after another and go on, force the life through your nostrils, you need it. You need your life.
My blood is thickening in my veins, I wonder why I am so crazy, when i perfectly know that I cannot reach her this way.
It could go on for days and days like this and I don't care. She's beyond human, for a moment I fed a hope so absurd: I hoped that she was like me. I never told my mother, but what makes me different from anyone else I know - my hybrid nature - has often been a burden for me. Like when I found myself the only one capable of changing the past, fighting the cyborgs, changing this world to a better place.
I've found myself alone instead. I know what she is, but my mind refuses to admitt it. She won't stop. She won't tire. She should be dead. She's a cyborg.
And she hurt my mother. She made her have that accident. Momma could have been killed. This is the thing that enrages me most. I wanna see her in that face and ask her why she'd do it, what she was looking for that day. I wanna ask her why she came into our house and stole all those things. Because I'm sure it's been her now.
What does she want to do with them? What is she planning? I'm sure it's nothing good.
The chase lasted long, neither of the two seeming willingly to surrender and let go. They ran through the streets of the wrecked town, an abandoned car still showing here and there, and then out of the asphalt and into the country, where the once cultivated fields were now a jungle of weeds. They ran through a small woods, making the birds fly away precipitously at their passage, and once again in the open, far away from the remains of the human dwellings, madding like they were happy, wild and free in the summer sun. Its rays were burning hot through crystal-clear air, and everything was bright. If the world had had to start over that very day, the weather couldn't have been more perfect.
A thought reached Trunks in a moment, the thought of how stupid he'd been not to fly. She was faster than him on foot, but what about in the air? Maybe she didn't even know how to levitate, it was a good chance.
The next moment he was airborne and there, at an inch or little more from his fingers, there was her small shoulder. Just one more effort, just a move...Yay!
When he finally set his hands on her they were crossing a dry field, all covered up in yellow withered grass. They both fell to the ground and rolled along in the dust, raising whirlpools and clouds of it and covering themselves in blades of dry grass and earth, Trunks struggling to block the girl and the girl struggling hard to break free. Geez, she was strong. She kicked, she scratched, she bit, always roaring in rage; and to fight she used every part of her body: the harder she could hit him with it, the better. Like if that wasn't enough, she was astonishingly agile. Her body wasn't made of the same matter as all the others; Trunks swore he saw once or twice her limbs and spine bending in a position he'd never have thought of. It was something like fighting with a rabid wildcat, twisting and hissing, and even the claw-marks that it cost him were much the same.
Finally he was able to push her belly-down in the grass, the girl still twisting in his grip and seeking desperately for a way to escape. "Let me go" she hissed under her breath.
Trunks was surprised that the girl could even speak a human language at all. Juunanagou and Juuhachigou did talk, that was true, but they didn't seem to intend language like common people did. What they said alone counted. Whenever someone implored mercy from them, they pretended they didn't understand, or maybe really didn't. Being made of steel in the body had maybe hardened as well their hearts.
So she spoke. But he didn't care about that now. He wanted to see the mark. Show him the mark, and her life was over. He searched with feverish eyes her left shoulder, but it was covered by her clothes, and just when he was about to take her simple tank top by the corner and slide it down, she arched her hips hard under him and was able to spin around to face him. But she couldn't free herself like she was trying to do, because before she could do it he pinned her firmly to the ground once more, his hands on her shoulders.
He locked his eyes in hers, his hard, blue gaze meeting frightened yellow eyes.
Frightened?
No, he thought to himself. He knew jinzouningen by now, they didn't feel things like people made of meat did. They were never sleepy, tired, or hungry. They didn't know pain and obviously they felt no fear.
He hated her with the depths of his very being just for being like that, artificial; he needed no other reason.
He'd put his hands to her throat and break her windpipe, yes, that's what he would do. In his delirious thoughts he was getting lost, no longer realizing where he really was and what his former purpose had been. His saiyajin part was fighting to break free.
But somehow he was able to regain control of his rational mind, and he realized what it was that restrained him from doing so. Like she had guessed his intentions and knew she couldn't do anything to escape his grip, the girl wasn't making resistance any longer, limp and motionless like a rag doll. He was afraid of his savage part now, he felt like killing a child. What made it worst was that she really looked like it.
An unexpected thought struck his mind while he was looking down at her: how long had she been like that? He remember how Juuhachigou's face, which he kept constantly on looking at, never seemed to change throughout the years. And he remembered how he sometimes felt strangely attracted by her physical appearance, and how it made him hate her all the more, because he couldn't conceive how such a pretty girl could have a core like hers of ice and frozen metal.
Now, the face of the girl under him was the one of a frightened child. She looked almost sweet. But he thought even more that he should not be misled by her appearance. How could she be any different from her colleagues after all? He hesitated, not really knowing what to do. And it was this hesitation that got him lost.
His grip loosened for a moment and without losing time she took advantage of that, freeing one of her arms and slapping him hard in the face. The move surprised Trunks so much-he'd expected a punch, a karate move to his throat, or anything like that-that he completely lost any control on the girl's twisting body, that finally was able to get completely rid of his hold and regain freedom.
She immediately got up to her feet, and , after casting an angry glance at him, she turned her back to him and disappeared, as fast as she could.
Song lyrics by Unkle, "Rabbit in your headlights"