Restoration
"Bulma, honey," Mrs. Briefs called over the intercom. "You have some visitors waiting for you downstairs."
"Okay, Mama, I'll be down in a moment!" Bulma shouted over the spray of the shower. She had invited some prospective clients over for lunch and a tour of the building, but she thought she would have enough time to freshen up before they arrived. Wonderful timing, as always. With a sigh, she turned off the deliciously hot water that had been streaming over her. She stepped out of the shower stall and took a fluffy white towel off the hook while warm air rushed from vents in the walls to dry her quickly. Wrapping the towel around her body, Bulma stood with her eyes closed in front of one vent so it blew directly into her damp hair. She ran her fingers through the tangles, then left the bathroom to hastily put on some clean clothes in her bedroom. As she finished buttoning a blouse, Vejita came in with Trunks on his arm.
"No, not now," she responded to the implication that it was her turn to take care of their son. "Keep an eye on him for a little longer, please. I've got to greet some people downstairs. Be back in half an hour. Okay?" She paused to kiss Trunks on the forehead and then briefly planted her mouth on Vejita's surprised lips before running past them and down the stairs.
Bulma began the usual welcome speech that she gave all company guests before she even made it all the way downstairs. "Welcome to Capsule Corporation. How may I--?" She suddenly stopped when she realized who her visitors were: Yamucha, Puaru, Kuririn, and a blonde young woman that resembled--Juuhachigou? Surprised, she looked to Yamucha for an explanation, but he only gave her a vague smile and an overall expression of nervous discomfort. Puaru simply grinned and pointedly glanced in the direction of Kuririn and Juuhachigou. Kuririn was crouched down tying a loose shoelace, but Juuhachigou turned to meet Bulma's eyes directly, blue to blue.
"Well, this is definitely a surprise," Bulma said, fighting off the awkward silence that was threatening to take over. Kuririn straightened up and spoke before she could ask any questions: "Bulma, could we borrow the dragon radar?"
"The radar? Why?" Her mind was jumping from conclusion to conclusion as it tried to formulate an answer to what was going on here. Just where have Kuririn and Yamucha disappeared to these last few days? "What do you need the dragonballs for?"
"We're going to help clean up the mess in Chamomile City," Kuririn replied. He smiled, an angel correcting the world's evils.
Suspicion crept into Bulma's mind. She looked at Yamucha again. "Are you guys involved with that somehow?" she demanded. Yamucha didn't answer; Kuririn's face seemed to redden slightly and bitterness tinged his smile, but he gave no explanation either. Juuhachigou simply crossed her arms. "Never mind. I don't want to know," Bulma sighed. She wanted no part of their complicated adventures right now, but she would give them what they needed. I'll force the full story from them some later day, though!
"The radar is in my desk in the shop," she stated and beckoned them to follow her down the hall.
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Bulma halted with her hand on the door of her workshop, peering through the small round window. "Heh. I thought Papa was working but he seems to be taking a break," she commented and swung open the door. "Come on inside." They filed in after her. Bulma's father sat at a desk, smoking a cigarette and reading a magazine that he pushed out of sight as soon as they entered. Bulma walked over to him, politely asked him to vacate her desk for a moment, and began rummaging through its drawers. Dr. Briefs stood up and wandered over to a metal table in the center of the large room; the frame of a small robot lay on the shining surface, chips and wiring exposed. Cables stretched out from monitoring computers and reached into the robot's interior. Dr. Briefs turned to examine what was displayed one of the monitors; Juuhachigou stared at the robot on the table.
--a body on a metal table--
Juuhachigou felt her own body go rigid.
--a body, split open down the middle, wires twisting into the wound--
Something quaked deep inside her and a tremor traveled over her flesh. She unconsciously lifted a hand and placed it on her stomach, over the scar.
--a body, dripping blood onto the floor--
--blood--
"No!" With a shout, Juuhachigou burst forward and swept all the tools and scattered parts off the table with a violent crash. "No! Stop the blood!" She frantically yanked out the cables attached to the robot.
"You can't do this again!" she shrieked. Juunanagou's body lay on the table, beads of blood oozing out from the gruesome line of stitches that ran from his chest to his stomach. "Not again!" She ripped the last cable off his shoulder and scooped him off the table. "Never again! Noooo!" she wailed, cradling his broken body in her arms. "JUUUUNAAANAAAAAA!"
A column of energy erupted around her, blowing her hair back wildly and tugging at her clothes. She clung to Juunanagou tightly, glaring at the angry light enveloping them.
"Juuhachigou."
Her eyes widened at the sound of her brother's voice; she looked down into Juunanagou's clear blue eyes and was startled to see herself reflected in them. "Can you see now what Gero's done to you?" she shouted over the roar of the light blazing around them. "Can you?"
"Juuhachigou." He smiled and put a hand to his chest--it was smooth and unscarred. "There's nothing there. I don't see anything." His blue eyes glinted.
She shook her head. "You're wrong--Wrong!" The energy surged and Juunanagou's hair began to fall away into ash. "Don't you see what Gero's done to us? Look!" Juunanagou grinned and closed his eyes; Juuhachigou cried out, but the energy exploded around her, melting away Juunanagou's flesh and leaving her clutching only his skeleton--bare, metal, and empty.
She heard someone call her name again, and two glowing arms reached out to twine about her waist, trying to pull her out of the raging energy. "Juuhachigou." The voice grew stronger. "Stop it, please! JUUHACHIGOU!"
Kuririn.
The voice was Kuririn's. Juunanagou had left her. Again. But Kuririn had found her. Again.
Abruptly the brilliance around her vanished. She saw the frightened faces of Bulma and her father. She saw the metal table with shredded wires and the broken metal parts strewn on the floor around it. She saw the small, metal skeleton in her arms; its stared up at her eyelessly.
"It's okay, Juuhachi...you're safe here," Kuririn said softly. His arms were still wrapped around her; the warmth of his body pressed against her back was a reassuring presence. She could feel his heartbeat. He was real; he was here. He was with her.
"Put Dr. Brief's house-bot back, Juuhachi. It's okay. Really."
Slowly, gently, Juuhachigou placed the skeleton back on the table.
--Juunana--
"Good," whispered Kuririn. His embrace tightened briefly. "Good." Then he released her.
Bulma strode towards them and slapped a small device into Kuririn's palm. "Take the radar and go."
They went, silent save for Yamucha's quickly muttered apology.
By the afternoon of the following day, they had collected five dragonballs without any exceptional difficulty--and without much conversation amongst thiselves. Juuhachigou appeared to have nothing to say to either of the men, and Yamucha seemed to prefer the silence after having witnessed her lose control of herself twice in the past few days. Kuririn could think of nothing to say to either of his companions, so he focused on the task at hand: collecting the dragonballs in order to repair the damage Juuhachigou had done to Chamomile City.
After they had found the sixth of the magical orbs, Yamucha suggested that he take them back to Capsule Corporation while Kuririn and Juuhachigou looked for the last dragonball. He said he was tired and joked that he didn't want Puaru to feel abandoned with the crazy Briefs family. Kuririn knew, though, that Yamucha wanted to go and explain their situation to Bulma.
Using the radar, Kuririn and Juuhachigou located the seventh dragonball without much trouble; it was caught in the bow of a massive tree in an old growth forest. Now, flying side by side back towards the Western Capital, Kuririn finally gathered his courage to speak: "Um...about yesterday..."
Juuhachigou turned her head slightly and gave him an impassive glance.
"I mean," Kuririn began again. "Sometimes...sometimes I also see--or hear--things that aren't there. Things from the past, from a time that...deeply affected me. Hurt me." He saw that her brows were arched with surprise; she was listening. Encouraged, he banished the insecurity from his voice as he continued, "There are things that you wish you could forget, that you try to forget, because if you think about them too much, you'll go crazy with anger and grief and shame. But these memories are powerful and take a hold of you. They refuse to be forgotten, so they try to control you. They can destroy you, if you give them the slightest chance. I was like that..."
Because of you.
"--But a very wise man saw what had happened to me, so he threw me off Kame Island and into the wide world where he hoped that I would learn to move on from the past. It seemed to work for a little while...I found distractions and thought that if I gave in to them, they would banish the painful memories." Kuririn suddenly felt self-conscious for talking so much, so personally, but Juuhachigou's pensive expression made him go on.
"If you do that, though, you're lying to yourself," he declared. "So life threw me a reminder of all I wanted to forget as soon as I thought I had escaped it. It made me face everything I had denied for so long...everything I had been ashamed and afraid of."
Like my love for you.
"It hurt, though--it still does, sometimes." His mouth turned up in a half-smile. "Some days you fall and the old pain controls you again, and some days you rise out of it and live only for the joy of the present--and then you can finally dream of the future." Kuririn glanced at Juuhachigou again, and fell silent, gazing at her shining hair streaming back from her sharp face, the elegant lines of her eyebrows, the skyblue of her distant eyes, the gentle red of her tightly pressed lips. She turned her eyes on him expectantly; they gleamed with the light of the slowly sinking sun, and a golden aura seemed to surround her.
Flustered, Kuririn turned back to face the direction they were flying in and picked up his one-sided conversation. "My point is, you have to face what haunts you and learn to live with it. It's part of who you are--and whether it's ugly or beautiful depends on what you make of it. But in the end no one makes it through life unscarred."
At that moment Juuhachigou grabbed his arm and dropped all her speed, wrenching Kuririn out of flight to an abrupt mid-air halt. "What did you say?" she demanded, digging her nails into his upper arm and inadvertently reminding him of how those same hands had almost snapped his neck only a few days ago.
She seized his other arm with the same tight grip. "What did you just say?" she asked again, clinging to him painfully. There was no anger in her voice, only a need for reassurance. Her eyes searched his desperately, as if the answer lay in them.
"No one makes it through life unscarred?" he repeated, unsure of what she wanted. Her lips parted in a silent gasp before she closed them in a soft smile. She relaxed her hold on Kuririn's arms, then let him go completely; she turned away from him, drifting in the air with her arms wrapped around herself.
"So...I'm not the only one with ugly deep scars," she said. The wind swirled through her hair.
"We all have them--some are just more visible than others," he answered. Then, suddenly unable to see her so alone against the empty sky, he encircled her with his arms and pulled her close against him, pressing his cheek against her soft hair. "But don't ever say that you're ugly," he whispered. You are still the most beautiful woman that I could ever dream of, no matter what you've been through, no matter what scars your life has given you.
" 'Some are just more visible than others'," she echoed. Her voice was hushed. "Which is worse: to see a horrible scar or to not know the full extent of an invisible one?"
"Hidden scars are the worst," he responded after a moment. "But they lose their power when they're brought into the open. Like Yamucha, whose scars are plain on his face, but no one notices them anymore. A scar can become a mark of pride, a badge of strength--a tribute to your own survival." You left a scar on my heart, Juuhachi, but I survived--and now it's marked me as yours forever. He closed his eyes, trying to imprint in his mind the sensation of holding the woman he loved, in case the opportunity never arose again.
"We'll see," she said. Then Juuhachigou slipped from his arms; a little needle pricked Kuririn's heart as she moved away. She spun around to face the direction of Capsule Corporation. "Let's hurry and bring this last dragonball back," she suggested, touching the spherical pouch attached to her belt. Kuririn nodded and with a bittersweet smile flew after Juuhachigou into the setting sun.
"Should we wait till tomorrow to do this?"
"No, it's almost dark already, so we won't disturb half the world by turning off the sun--but the dragon will be really visible here."
"We could move--"
"Don't worry about it, the people around here are used to strange happenings at Capsule Corporation. Just get it over with."
"Who'll do the honors?"
"Who's the one who started all this? Hmm?"
"Fine...I have the wishes anyway..." Kuririn stepped up to the pile of seven glassy orange spheres, raised his hands in the air, and called out, "I summon thee, Shenlong! Come and grant my wish!"
Light shot forth from the dragonballs and a monstrous shape emerged, rushing up towards the night sky with a roar. The light solidified into the huge serpentine coils of a dragon, whose deep voice shook the ground beneath their feet: "I am Shenlong. I will grant you three wishes, whatever they may be."
"Oh Shenlong, I wish that Chamomile City and all its inhabitants are restored to their original state before--before Juuhachigou damaged them."
The dragon stared down at the semicircle of people gathered around Kuririn and the dragonballs. "That's impossible," he thundered.
Juuhachigou laughed softly. "Poor Kuririn, always asking for impossible wishes." Why does he bother?
The rest of the group turned to stare at her. She stared back, nonplussed. "True," Yamucha agreed. "And they always involve a certain impossible cyb--woman." Kuririn reddened.
"I will grant you three wishes," Shenlong repeated. "The restoration of Chamomile City could be broken up into two wishes."
"Really?" Kuririn perked up. "Okay...then I wish for all the damaged buildings in Chamomile City to be repaired"
Why does he keep trying? Juuhachigou wondered.
"Your wish has been granted," thundered the dragon. "What is your second wish?"
"For all the dead and injured people to be healed"
>Why does he care so much?
"Your wish has been granted. As an added bonus, those that were already buried or cremated have been resurrected above ground with whole bodies. Now, what is your final wish?"
"Watch, this'll be impossible too," someone muttered.
Kuririn said, "I wish that Juuhachigou won't be plagued by horrible visions anymore."
Why does he always want to fix the bad things?
Why does he always want to help me?
Why does his smile fill me with such hope?
"NO!" she shouted with the explosive force of the emotions bursting inside her. "Don't grant it!"
"What?" Shenlong and Kuririn asked simultaneously.
Juuhachigou ran to stand beside Kuririn. "Don't grant that wish--it'll take away some of my memories!" she shouted up at the dragon. She glared at Kuririn. "I don't have that many anymore."
"But--"
"They may be ugly, but they're a part of me. They made me. Don't take anything else away from me again, Kuririn. After all--" She leaned in close to him. "No one makes it through this life unscarred."
His eyes widened as he recognized his own words thrown back at him.
I'm not running from the memories. I'm not distracting myself from them. I'm not like Juunanagou anymore.
"Leave me something of myself, something to be proud of," she said, softly. Let me be the one to make my scars lose their power over me. Don't take that from me. Don't control me.
Don't remake me again.
Just let me live.
"Cancel that wish, then," Kuririn said. "I guess now I can ask for the final wish I had planned before you said that Chamomile City would take up two. I wish that Yamucha gets back all the money he spent on our 'adventure' together, although he deserves much more for being such a great friend."
"Your wish has been granted. Farewell." The dragon vanished and the dragonballs shot apart into the sky.
"Did you ask him to wish that?" Bulma demanded from Yamucha.
He scatched the back of his head embarrassedly. "No, I swear Kuririn--"
"You're welcome," Kuririn responded, smiling.
"Feh. All this fuss for a lousy artificial doll," Vejita sneered. Bulma elbowed him sharply in the ribs, although she held Trunks in her arms. "Shut up," she told the Saiyajin.
"Woman--"
"Oh, don't give me that. Stop bristling. Here, hold your son. He's getting heavy."
"Hmph. Weak human." Vejita took the boy and wandered back into Capsule Corporation.
"So what's next, Kuririn?" Yamucha wondered. "Where do we go from here?"
"Um..." Kuririn looked down at the ground and ran a hand over his hair. "I think I'll go back to Kame Island. The city life is a bit much for me after all, I think."
Kame Island...
"Are you going to leave right now? You're welcome to spend another night here," Bulma suggested. "All of you, no matter how my lousy husband feels." She winked at Juuhachigou.
"No," Juuhachigou replied with intense certainty. "I have to go somewhere else. But--thank you." She bent down and pecked Kuririn on the cheek. "See ya," she told him, then leapt up and flew away into the starlit night.
"She sure left in a hurry," Bulma observed, staring up at the dark sky.
"Yeah," Yamucha agreed. "You'd think she would have stayed with you for at least a little while, after everything you've done for her, Kuririn."
"She said 'see ya'," Kuririn responded; the stars in his field of vision blurred and he blinked the tears from his eyes.
Bulma laid a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry."
He looked up at her. "Why? Every other time she's said that, we always saw each other again." He smiled and ignored the wet droplet that spilled from the corners of his eyes.
"Come on, let's go inside. It's been a long day," Bulma said and her hand gently guided him towards the door back into the building, but he pulled away and lingered for a moment to stare at the night sky. I will see you again, Juuhachi.
Even if I have to search the world over for you.
But we'll find each other again.
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Author's Note: So Juuhachigou's light finally beat off the darkness and Juunana's ghost won't haunt her anymore...or at least for now. Kuririn really is a sweetly sappy guy, I think. It was his voice all along, not Juunana's, except for the few lines that were merely echoes from Juuhachi's memory.
I really would like to make a doujinshi version of this story...I can even see what it would look like for most scenes, due to the mental pictures I have--it's like I watch the story in my mind as if it's a real episode of the show, and then I just describe it with words. ^^ I'm not sure I have the time (let alone the talent) to pull off a good doujinshi...I've only tried to make one twice (once was about a ditzy girl's wish to see all the Z-guys in concert...O_o....fortunately I only did the first 5 pages; the other doujinshi was a scene from Hamlet....Hamlet looked like a cheap imitation of X's Kamui ). Maybe I'll just try do a key scene from "The Searching" or something? I'd appreciate any comments on this matter (or your own tales of failed doujinshi attempts ^_~) so leave a review or just e-mail me at crazy_retasu@yahoo.com