Chapter Six:
"Osiris, we don't have time for this." Arda said, almost pleadingly. "Can't you see the clouds? That's the darkness coming. We have just a little over seven hours, tops, before the gateway into hell opens up."
Osiris' expression didn't change. "I suppose those pathetic mortals will praise you for saving them from me now. You will be a 'good guy'. Well, they don't know who or what we are. You are a monster, Arda, just like me. And no matter how many of those pathetic innocents you save, you will always be one."
Arda only shrugged. "What makes you think so, Osiris? And what difference does it make? You can talk all you like, but I'm more powerful than you. And those earthlings, those mortals, I think that if they were to fight you again, they would win."
Now the anger vanished in a flash and Osiris threw back his head and laughed. "Oh, that's good. Let me guess, they're special, they have power? I've never lost a battle, especially not one with a mortal."
"Well, you will. And soon." Arda said. "That man, Son Goku's child, he's got more untapped power than you can even comprehend. If you weren't so impossibly thick, maybe you would have sensed that."
The look of rage quickly returned to the vampire's face. "Just SHUT UP!!!" Osiris screamed, and flew forward.
Krillin searched frantically through the barren landscape below, searching for any sign of life. Gohan and Piccolo were still alive, but their ki signatures were very faint. So faint that it was impossible to pinpoint the exact location. But something else seemed to be interfering.
Usually, sensing ki was like looking at the sun with your eyes closed. You couldn't see it really, but you would have to be blind to miss it. But something was wrong. It was like something else was dimming the signal, and now it was like trying to see the sun with a blanket over your head. possible, but not likely.
"I was sure..." he muttered as he landed on a rock where he was sure he had sensed something, only to find nothing. It was like that. He would land where he thought he sensed something, and then he would sense it somewhere else.
He floated slowly into the air again. He had been searching for at least fifteen minutes, moving in smaller and smaller circles. He knew he hadn't passed anything up, he had been really careful. So he must be getting closer.
He was starting to get lost in his thoughts when he saw something. It was an arm, sticking out from under a rock.
"Oh, jeez!" he muttered and landed next to it. It was unmistakably Gohan's; the orange cloth of the gi was still visible coming from under the rock.
"Hold on, buddy. I'll get you out." he said. Then he looked up at the boulder. It was huge, at least twenty feet high and twice that wide. He could blow it up, but that would hurt Gohan. So it looked like he was stuck moving it.
"Man, this just really sucks." he muttered, kneeling down and sliding his fingers under the rock. He strained upward.
"Come on..." he muttered, and the rock began to lift. He got it six inches.... a foot.... two feet.
He let his aura blaze around him, and floated up off the ground. Finally the rock overbalanced, and tumbled over on it's top, causing the ground to shake.
"Whew..." Krillin wiped his brow and floated down next to Gohan.
"Hey... Gohan" he muttered.
"Krillin? That..." Gohan's quiet voice broke off into a series of harsh coughs.
"Yeah, it's me. Just hang in there, Gohan, I'll help you out."
He reached down to grab Gohan by the shoulders, but then pulled back. Everything appeared to be broken. How he had managed to talk was completely beyond Krillin's comprehension.
"Gohan, I can move you, but it's going to hurt, really bad." Krillin said softly.
"Don't worry...." he coughed again, "bout me. Piccolo..." he trailed off.
"Krillin!!"
Krillin snapped his face skyward, and was greeted by the most relieving sight of his life: Goten, Trunks, and Uubu, flying towards him. Clearly visible on Goten's belt was a bag of senzu beans.
The human warrior's face broke into a huge grin. "Hey!! Come on, hurry! Gohan's hurt really bad!"
The three young warriors landed next to Krillin, and all immediately froze at the sight of Gohan.
"Oh, man." Goten said. Gohan's legs and back were all twisted at a very bad angle. His head was partially crushed, and his entire body except for his one exposed arm seemed broken and bruised.
"He'll need more than one bean, I think." Uubu said a little uneasily.
"Just hurry!" Krillin said, and Goten's paralysis broke. He rushed over to Gohan, pulling the bag of beans from his belt.
"Here, Gohan." he said as he shook three of the beans from his pouch. "Can you chew?"
"Don't know." Gohan said shortly.
Goten nodded and crushed the beans in his hands, making then into a powder. He gently pushed Gohan's mouth open and sifted it in, letting it dissolve and move down his throat.
At first there appeared to be no change. Then very slowly, the misshapen dent in Gohan's head pushed back out, leaving no evidence that it had ever been there.
Just as slowly, his legs and back began to realign themselves. They pushed over, the awkward angles disappearing, giving way to the straight line of Gohan's muscled leg, and his back went back to just the right curve.
Before five minutes had passed, the healing had stopped and Gohan could sit up.
"I think... I'm not completely healed." he winced and rubbed his neck. It was true. There were huge bruises covering his arms and legs, and his face had a few good ones as well.
"I've only got two more beans." Goten said apologetically. "This year's crop wasn't quite ripe yet, and this was all Korin had."
Gohan nodded. "Well, we need to save the last two, and go find..."
"Me?" the unmistakable gruff voice of the namek came from behind them. They all whirled and saw Piccolo standing behind them, wearing a new untouched gi, cape, and turban. His arm was back, still looking new and cleaner, not covered with the thin layer of desert dust that they were all covered with by now.
"Piccolo-san!" Gohan said happily, and got shakily to his feet.
"Sit down, kid. You need those beans a little more than I do."
Gohan obedient sat down, and swallowed the senzu bean that Goten handed him. The bruises immediately faded to almost nothing, and he climbed to his feet.
"So... what happened to Osiris?" Piccolo asked.
Arda dodged out of the way of the punch that was aimed at his face, but not quite fast enough. It caught him in the jaw and sent him reeling to one side.
"Kaio-ken!" he yelled out, and the red aura burst to life around him, pushing Osiris back a couple steps.
"So, you want to play around with ki?" Osiris smirked.
Arda didn't answer. He spun faster than Osiris could see clearly and sent his foot into the other vampire's jaw. Osiris' smirk vanished, and he flew back through the air. He didn't get far before Arda appeared behind him.
"HAA!!" he screamed, shooting a blast straight into Osiris' back. White light burst out and sent him flying on his face in the dirt, digging a huge furrow in the ground as he slid.
"No, I don't want to play with ki." Arda snarled, and blurred out of sight again. He appeared above Osiris, and dove straight down, slamming a foot into the center of Osiris' back, causing the other vampire to let out an involuntary scream of pain.
"Unless you call death playing." he snarled.
He pulled himself up and landed a few paces away. Osiris got up quickly enough after a couple seconds.
"That was a cheap shot." he growled. "If you power up, I power up."
Without waiting for an answer, he balled his fists up, his muscles tensing and bulging.
Before any aura was visible, the ground began to shake. Small snaps of blue ki lightning began to whip around Osiris' body, and the rocks and debris left the soil and floated in the air on a wave of ki.
The ground shook more violently, and Osiris began to grunt in frustration, because it had been a long, long time since he had powered up. The lightning began to swirl, and an electric blue aura began to appear between the bolts.
"Half power is all I will require to destroy you." Osiris said, his ki still rising.
The, with no warning, he shot at Arda, his ki stabilizing as he flew, and buried a fist in his opponent's stomach.
The red-haired vampire's face was crossed with surprise, and then pain as he doubled over. He tried to bring a hand up and swing back, but Osiris caught it easily.
"Playtime's over now, Arda." he snarled, and flipped around, slamming Arda into the ground. There was a huge hollow boom as cracks spread around where he had struck the earth.
Arda grit his teeth and growled out, "Double Kaio-ken!"
The red aura burst even bigger around him, and he jumped to his feet, throwing Osiris' hand off.
"Yes." he agreed. "Playtime's over."
Gohan stared off into the distance. The ki they had all just felt...
No doubt, it was far bigger than any of them were used to sensing. Right now, the two vampires appeared to be even, about at the level of Vegeta. But, then again, it was hard to tell. They were all having the same trouble sensing ki. Even so, it was plain that there was quite a bit of power being thrown around by Arda and Osiris.
"So... the guy that was fighting Vegeta earlier is now stalling Osiris, so that you could give me and Piccolo senzu beans?" Gohan asked in confusion.
Goten just nodded.
Gohan was angry. Not just angry, but furious. It was bad enough that Osiris had attacked them , bad enough that he had killed Juuhachi-gou and nearly killed him and Piccolo.
But now someone else was having to fight their battle so that he could get a senzu bean.
"I'm not waiting any more. This has happened one time too many." Gohan said, his voice a low snarl. He felt himself reaching, reaching like he hadn't since his fight with Cell, for the hidden power. He hadn't been able to access it all before, but maybe...
The others were backing away from him, wide eyed. His power had risen beyond what it had been when he was fighting Osiris. And it was still climbing.
They kept backing up and white shards of ki lightning began to snap and burn the dirt and scant grasses around them.
"No more. I won't let it happen anymore." he snarled. Then he let go.
The rush of power was enormous, filling the five other warrior's whole world with blinding white. Gohan didn't yell, didn't scream, didn't make a sound. The only noises were the other's cries of surprise and the soft but savage roar of ki incinerating the earth.
Then it cleared as quickly as it had begun. Goten, Trunks, Krillin, Piccolo, and Uubu were all on their backs several feet away, staring at the silent warrior in front of them.
Gohan's hair billowed in the hard white aura that surrounded him, his eyes narrowed with the rage burning inside of him.
"I guess the mystic form has it's own levels of power." Gohan said smoothly, his voice like a poisoned icicle. "I've reached mine. And I'm going to kill Osiris."
With that, Gohan took off into the air, leaving the other bewildered fighters behind to stare after him.
The five warriors stared after Gohan, none of them saying a word. They didn't doubt that he would carry through on his threat to end the vampire's life, and they also didn't want to be nearby when he did. Gohan was a powerhouse, above what any of them could even comprehend of reaching. Just the crossfire could be deadly.
"What's that?" Krillin blurted out suddenly. He was gazing at a bank of black cloud on the horizon. It was moving slowly but steadily toward them.
"That's the darkness." Goten said. "Remember what Korin said? A little while after that, and the gateway into hell's going to open up."
Krillin's eyes widened. "I hope Goku and Vegeta get back soon." he said shortly.
A huge, hollow BOOM echoed across the landscape as Osiris' fist slammed hard against Arda's waiting arm. Without pausing, the ice-eyed vampire spun and sent a hard kick to his opponents ribs, sending Arda flying back a few feet, before he was able to stop himself.
The sky was already dark overhead, and the clouds were moving toward the Z warriors.
"You are a fool, Arda." Osiris snarled. "You're going to die. You can't possibly think that I'll let you live after this. And all for a pack of mortals."
Arda's expression wasn't of anger, it was pity. He wiped a trickle of blood from the side of his mouth absently and spoke.
"A pack of mortals." Arda said in an almost mocking tone. "Osiris, mortals deserve life. They only have a few short years, before they wink out like a candle in a storm. Why not let them live their lives? Just for once, give life instead of death."
The other vampire merely snarled. "How many times will you spew this garbage at me, Arda? How many times will you try to convince me that they deserve to live, when they are nothing but food?"
Arda heaved a deep sigh. "I'm sorry for you, Osiris. Very sorry. Especially since I have to kill you. Then you'll know what it's like for all that 'food' that you've so thoughtlessly removed from the universe."
The second the last syllable left Arda's lip's, Osiris threw a hand forward and blasted a huge beam of white at him. A look of surprise crossed Arda's face before he was engulfed.
Osiris dived into the smoke, not waiting for it to clear. He felt a presence in front of him, low to the ground, and swung at it. There was a muffled snap of breaking bone as his fist collided with Arda's jaw.
The red haired vampire was thrown backward out of the cloud, the Kaio-ken aura vanishing from him as he slammed into the hard packed earth and dug a trench in it with his body.
"Shit." he muttered, and then winced painfully. His jaw had been shattered, and it would take a couple minutes to heal.
His thoughts were cut off abruptly as Osiris' booted foot came into contact with his ribs, lifting him off the ground again and slamming him back down in another place.
Osiris' footsteps came near at a leisurely pace, stopping at Arda's head. A second later, and his vision was filled with the other vampire's cold eyes, and he was dragged to his feet by a rough hand on his collar.
"My, my, how the tables have turned. Death comes for you tonight, my old friend." Osiris said as he smiled cruelly in his opponent's face.
"Death comes for us all." Arda said through his already partly healed jaw. "But it will be worse for you, Osiris, much worse. When you die, it will be without honor."
Osiris' smile vanished. "Is that so?"
"Yes." Arda muttered. "That's so." He smirked as best as he could. "Triple Kaio-KEN!!!"
The huge red ki flared forth, making Arda's body literally glow with fiery intensity, and slamming Osiris back with a vengeance. The startled vampire flew back and landed on the ground, looking up in surprise and fear.
A smile, barely visible but wracked with pain, crossed Arda's face. "A temporary solution, and nothing more." he said.
Osiris smirked and stood back up.
"Temporary is right. I'm really going to have to kill you now, and much more painfully than I intended to in the first place."
Arda pointed one finger at Osiris, trained on the younger but more powerful vampire's heart.
"I picked up this little move from King Kai. One of the most powerful he knew, and he didn't even invent it. It was actually invented by a warrior of this planet. If you're really convinced that you can kill me, that you're so much stronger, let it hit you."
Osiris grinned. "Sure. Why not?"
Arda grinned even wider. "Dodonpa!!"
A beam of dark gold flew from his finger, a ball of ultra concentrated energy about a foot wide on the end.
Osiris' grinning form blurred away, and the beam flew past him. Arda's eyes went wide in astonishment and anger, as the beam hit a cliff about half a mile away and detonated, lighting up the sky and blowing the rain away for a second.
"Coward! Liar!!" Arda spat in anger, the Kaio-ken aura vanishing. He dropped to his knees, breathing heavily. His energy was almost gone, and it was still going, trying to keep his body up and working after the horrible strain of the Kaio-ken.
After another second, the Kaio-ken aura vanished and he fell to his knees, almost unconscious from the strain.
"Oh, are you tired, Arda? Your little power up technique too much for you?" Osiris' cruel voice snarled as he walked forward from the left. "You say I will die without honor? Well, I have something to tell you."
He puled back his foot, his malicious smile growing. "You may die with honor, but it will be for nothing."
He looped his foot around hard, Arda was to spent to even move. There was a sickening crack and a cry as his neck broke. He flew sideways with the momentum of the kick and landed flat on his back, not moving.
"All for nothing." Osiris said again, and turned to walk away.
Then he stopped.
"Am I sensing what I think I am?" he asked himself. Because he couldn't be. He was sensing.... Gohan. But so much more powerful than before... more powerful than was possible.
A point of white light appeared in the sky where it was still light, just beyond the edge of where the clouds were now. Even as he stared, a few heavy raindrops fell from the sky, spattering apart on his rock hard skin.
"I am." he said to himself, and remembered the words Arda had said just a few minutes ago.
The man, the child of Goku. He has more hidden power than you can dream of, Osiris.
Gohan stared ahead with eyes as dark and stormy as the clouds he was flying into, thinking only of one thing. He had to kill Osiris.
He saw the clouds ahead, and realized what they meant. But he didn't really care. Not right now. He was afraid, in some remote way, that if he turned his attention to something other than destroying the vampire, he would lose this strength that he had pulled up after so many years of ignoring it.
Not far away now. He could clearly sense Osiris' immense ki, and also the low, almost nonexistent ki of the other vampire, the one that had probably saved his life by getting Krillin away from the battle. It was by following Krillin's energy signature that the three teens had been able to find him in the first place.
"I promise, it wasn't for nothing." he said out loud, not knowing that he was contradicting what Osiris had just said earlier.
Now he was almost there. He could see Osiris, standing in the already falling rain, waiting for him.
He pulled up, checked his speed, and landed, less than three feet away from the monster, staring into those icy yet somehow afraid eyes.
At first, neither of them said a thing. Then Osiris said, without even a trace of the fear he felt evident in his french sounding voice,
"You've healed. How?" He sounded merely curious.
"That's not your concern." Gohan said, not able to hide his anger and not wanting to. For the first time since Cell, and only the second in his life, he felt the distinct desire to kill. The desire for revenge.
"I was merely interested." Osiris said, waving a hand in the air casually. "You are a saiyajin, correct? I had no recollection of that species having the power of regeneration."
Gohan said nothing, but a ring of ki blasted out from his along the ground with the sound of thunder, causing Osiris to flinch just a bit.
"Fine then." the vampire snarled. "You want revenge for my hurting you. That is plain. But you can just try to take it. You see what I did to the fool over there."
Gohan shook his head. "No, I don't want revenge for what you did to me. I want revenge for what you did to Piccolo, for his pain, and for Juuhachi-gou, for her life, and for Krillin's pain because he lost her. And trust me, I will take it."
Osiris' eyes went fearlessly cold again, and the irises began to spin. It took Gohan only a split second to feel the force coming at him, wrenching his body inside. The same force that wasn't ki, but something even more dangerous and more sinister.
Then suddenly it stopped.
Gohan snapped a look. Osiris' face was twisted in pain and effort.
"Damn you, Arda! Stop that!" he yelled out, and Gohan's gaze fell to the ground. Just behind Osiris, a man with blood-red hair and eyes was crouching, all evidence of a broken neck vanished except for a ring of ugly bruises. His eyes were spinning and glowing, all the power directed at Osiris.
"Attack him!" the man yelled. "You have the power that I don't! KILL HIM!!"
Gohan needed no further urging.
He shot forward through the air, his foot in front of him, his leg rigid as a spear. It slammed solidly home into Osiris' stomach.
The vampire's face suddenly went wide eyed with pain as Gohan's foot sank in and a sizable bulge appeared in his back where it was pushing out. The rain was pouring down by this time, and water mixed with blood that was trickling out of Osiris' nose and open mouth.
Suddenly something fell at Gohan's feet. He glanced quickly down and saw that a metal tube with a button on the side had fallen from Osiris' belt.
"Use it!" Arda cried out. "You have enough ki to make a blade powerful enough to kill him! Press the button on the side and GO FOR THE NECK!!"
Gohan let his foot fall and picked up the tube as fast as he could. Osiris was doubled over, blood trickling from his mouth, clutching his stomach. Gohan pressed the button on the tube, and a white blade of ki about four feet in length shot out from the handle.
He glanced at Osiris.
"Don't.... you can't... kill me. I'm..... immortal....!" the vampire muttered.
"I can." Gohan said. "And I am."
He brought the ki sword around in a blurring loop, closing his eyes as he did it. He felt the soft push as the blade encountered resistance, and then plowed through.
He opened his eyes.
A look of surprise crossed Osiris' face, and pain. He began to reach up toward his neck.
Then there was a surprisingly small gush of blood, and the head rolled off, like something from a cheap horror movie.
Gohan's aura abruptly vanished, his power gone, and he sank to his knees, dropping the ki sword. The second it left his grasp, the blade vanished, it's power gone with Gohan's. He saw in front of him a fairly disturbing image of Osiris' arms clawing at the air where his head should have been. There was almost no blood, because Osiris hadn't fed in a while, though Gohan didn't know that.
The body slumped over and fell to the ground, and Gohan's gaze followed it, right to Osiris' head, lying there, it's eyes and mouth still wide open in pain.
He stared, and the full force of what he had just done hit him. He had done what he hated to do, and had told himself that he could never do again. He had taken life. No matter how horribly evil Osiris had been, no matter that he had killed Juuhachi-gou and probably millions of nameless beings on nameless planets, Gohan had still killed him.
The half breed saiyajin turned his face to the sky and just looked. He wasn't going crazy, and he wasn't going to be grief stricken forever, but for now he was still.
When he finally looked down, Osiris' body was still there, all ki and life vanished completely, but Arda was gone.