Disclaimer: No DBZ is owned by me. *Tra-lala*

~Just when I think on my own

When I've broken every door

The ghosts of my life

Are louder than before

Just when I thought I could not be stopped

When my chance came true

The ghosts of my life

They bring up memories

All my time, all my tears

-Ghosts, Tenth Planet ~

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'Old Vegeta' thought.

'Present day Vegeta' thought.

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What We Knew

Chapter Four: Living, Breathing

A Week Later...

Vegeta shifted his weight, and was just growing comfortable in the oversized Capsule Corp bed when the voice woke him again.

I'm bored.

Flinching, Vegeta growled moodily. "And that is important to me, because?" the saiyajin responded coldly. He had gotten used to talking to Kage verbally as if the thought-voice was physically standing right there in front of him. He may have gotten used to it, but he still didn't like it. It made him look, as humans would say, 'schizophrenic'.

It's important if I decide to do anything about my boredom, Kage responded, just as moodily.

Vegeta snorted, glancing to the clock. 1:30 AM?! The saiyajin prince had at LEAST had another hour until he was going out to train. "And what would you plan?" Vegeta sniped. "Let me rest, I have training to do."

That seemed to silence Kage for a moment. Training, eh?

Vegeta snorted in reply. "Just as I have every day."

Good.

-_-_-_-

Bulma was up early, adorned in her blue bunny pajamas and padding around in her fluffy, pink house-slippers. A good bowl of cereal sounded good to her.

Even after the Lab 2 accident, Bulma wasn't going to stop strengthening her passion for creating new ideas. Though her father had forbid her to do any serious work this past week, she had been drawing up random ideas for her next project. Her brain couldn't stand the thought of idling.

But there was another thing her brain wasn't idle about. Vegeta. He hadn't acted quite the same ever since the accident. Sure, he was still the pushy arrogant saiyajin he had always been. But there were times his gaze would seem like he was focusing his attention somewhere else, or he was having a conversation within his mind. Gradually Bulma had noticed that he had also begun to train more often and spend less time with her and her parents (though he never spent much time to begin with). Her curiosity had been sparked, and a tinge of worry clouded her drifting thoughts. Though Vegeta denied it, HAD the machine caused him damage?

Bulma was jerked from her thoughts as she realized the milk she had been pouring into her bowl was running over the edge. Slightly embarrassed, she was hastily cleaning up her mess when she heard the soft, padded footsteps coming down the hall.

It still amazed her that for someone so haughty, he had such light footsteps. Glancing up from her cereal, Bulma saw Vegeta enter the kitchen, dressed in his training clothing.

"Hey, Vegeta," she greeted. "Off to train again?"

Vegeta snorted. "I'm STILL waiting for the GR to be upgraded. Tell your baka father to hurry along with the repairs. I grow tired of waiting."

Bulma rolled her eyes. Well, that was a wonderful 'good morning, Bulma'. "Look Vegeta, he's doing his best, why don't you appreciate that he's trying??"

"He could do better," Vegeta responded snippily as he threw open the refrigerator and grabbed the carton of milk. Without thinking twice he downed the entire thing in a few gulps. Bulma stared idly at him before snapping out of her trance.

"You baka! Someone might have wanted that for breakfast!"

Vegeta smirked, wiping his mouth. "Too bad." Without a flinch he tossed the carton of milk at the blue-haired scientist and sauntered out.

Bulma stood there, fuming as the milk carton landed at her feet. That worthless, no good, conniving...

-_-_-_-

...baka!

Bah, who did she think she was, ordering the prince of all saiyajins around??

You should have shown the wench her place. You really don't think just throwing a MILK carton is going to do it, do you?!

"I try not to damage her when I can, she's the one who creates new training regimes and assists her patter in developing new technology...but if that baka onna pushes it..."

Bah. Vegeta scowled. Almost sounded like he was sticking up for that pathetic human.

Kill her, keep the father. That weakling would do anything you wanted, if pushed...

Vegeta put up a mental wall between he and Kage. He just didn't feel like arguing right then. He had to focus on training.

Vegeta had tried using what humans call a 'punching bag'. To no avail, of course. The bag had burst upon his first punch. So Vegeta had demanded Mr. Briefs create a better developed punching bag that could withstand the pressure. Mr. Briefs temporarily took time off the GR, which was still in need of much work, to create the new punching bag in minimal time. Though it was high-tech, could withstand the punches, and was programmed to zip around the extra training room that had been installed, it still did not give as much of a challenge as the GR had. But Vegeta, keeping tabs on his and Kage's patience, tried to keep himself from thinking about that blasted GR.

Growing used to Kage at first had been quite complicated. But then slowly it had gotten easier. Kage was, as far as Vegeta understood, another part of him that had been re-awakened. And to sustain his level of sanity, Vegeta decided Kage wasn't real at all and really just some manifestation of his imagination.

Standing there, in this adjacent training room with bare walls, flush navy carpet with a solitary and rather normal-looking punching bag suspended in the center from a length of gears that could send it speeding around the room, Vegeta gave a hefty sigh. Damned woman...all his anger boiled down to her. Sometimes he envision HER as the punching bag.

But she had never truly done anything to earn his hatred in the first place. He was really just confused, and Kage's presence wasn't helping.

Hurry up, Kage instructed, irritably. He was eager to get the training started.

"I'm doing so," Vegeta responded icily as he made his way over to the control consol positioned on the wall to his left. He knew Kage's urge to train...every saiyajin had that urge, but...

Hnn. Kage seemed a little...to eager.

Brushing his doubts aside, Vegeta pressed a few odd-colored buttons on the consol. How he loathed this primitive technology. But it was better than meditating for weeks. Though strengthening his mind probably should have been one of the first things on the ouji's mind.

The consol had levels set, ranging from easiest to hardest. Naturally, Vegeta chose the hardest level the system could muster.

"Ready," the system stated, the sound coming from speakers positioned in the corners of the room.

Vegeta snorted, striding confidently toward the punching bag hanging suspended in the center of the room. Just as he was about to approach it...

WHAM!

Thanks to his lightning reflexes, Vegeta careened to the side as the activated bag blazed by him in a blur of speed. Turning on a dime, it launched itself to the side and careened wildly across the room.

"Hmph!!" Vegeta launched himself after it, estimating which way it would take next. Phasing in front of it, he launched his fist at its center.

But in a moment of mechanical estimation, the punching bag swerved to the side. Vegeta's first just barely nicked it.

"Niamisu*!" the system announced. With a growl, Vegeta launched himself after the punching bag again.

Meanwhile, a certain blue-haired scientist was padding quietly to the room. Oh, she was going to give that no good saiyajin a piece of her mind!

It did take a good deal of confidence before she managed to quietly open the door. Peeking inside, her wide cerulean eyes caught the sight of Vegeta getting into a vicious display of speed and calculation with their automatic system they had installed.

-Wow...- She couldn't HELP but notice the way his muscles were so well toned, or that victorious gleam in his eye when he landed a punch, or the way he was so swift...

-Whoa! Bulma girl! Snap out of it! THIS IS THE GUY WHO THREW THE MILK AT YOU!- Immediately Bulma snapped out of her trance.

At that same moment, Vegeta snarled as the bag swerved away again, rocketing towards the other side of the room. He still had not seen or sensed Bulma enter. In agitation, he flipped backwards and thrust out his hands, sending a miniature ki blast swerving wildly to catch up with the punching bag.

It took Bulma a minute to realize the bag was really close to her proximity, and that a ki blast was also headed that way.

"...AHHH!" She squealed, jerking backwards and yanking the door closed as the ki blast crashed into the punching bag, tearing it off of its gears and sending it clamming into the door she had just closed.

Vegeta lowered his hands, frowning. What the hell..?

That damned onna! Kage howled in his mind as he caught the whiff of shampoo in the air. Vegeta felt red-hot anger bubble up within him.

Growling like a POed panther, Vegeta sauntered over to the door and ripped the charred punching bag away before yanking the door open, nearly tearing it off it's hinges. And sure enough, there was Bulma, crouched against the far side of the wall with her hair frizzed and eyes wide.

It took Bulma a moment to realize that she had narrowly escaped serious injury, and the cause of that near serious injury was glowering right down at her. And as usual, anger kicked in.

"YOU STUPID MONKEY!!" Bulma screeched, leaping to her feet. She pointed frantically behind Vegeta, indicated the mutilated door and the punching bag beyond that. "You-you-you-your DESTROYING the entire house!!"

Vegeta smirked. It was so amusing when the stupid woman got all mad. But he was also angry.

"Who told you to spy on my training?!" he barked.

"It's MY HOUSE!" Bulma yelled back, forgetting she was just in her pajamas and just a few minutes ago she had practically been drooling over this destructive Neanderthal. "In case you've FORGOTTEN!"

"I wouldn't have to be using this confounded contraption in the FIRST place if you had the GR working!" Vegeta snapped back, wrist flexing. In the back of his mind he felt Kage idly watching, a mental barrier Kage himself had put up to keep Vegeta from reading his thoughts.

"We've already talked about that!" A frustrated Bulma announced. She felt like tearing off her fuzzy slipper and smacking Vegeta with it. But of course she couldn't do that, unless she just particularly WANTED to die right then.

Then get it DONE, wench!

In the spur of a moment, the very words Kage had snapped within Vegeta's mind poured out of Vegeta's own mouth.

"Then get it DONE, wench!"

Bulma blinked, her voice failing her as the words lashed out at her from the saiyajin before her. His face was twisted into a mask of icy rage, wrists clenched and his onyx eyes flaring dangerously. For a split second, Bulma was transported back to Planet Namek.

"Vegeta...?" she asked meekly, obviously shaken by the sudden spastic change in his attitude. Her very voice seemed to die against the tension that suddenly sparked thickly between them.

Vegeta growled, suddenly his expression unreadable, and angrily brushing by Bulma- though careful not to send her flying- and disappeared down the hall.

Bulma let her hands unclench from each other and fall to her sides. She only vaguely looked at the shredded door and punching bag in front of her. She was still seeing Vegeta standing in front of her, and for a minute...

Heh...for a minute, he had looked just like that demon from her past...

*Near-miss