Notes: Once again, I offer my thanks to my reviewers. It may seem like I'm sucking up, but I'm truly grateful for the encouragement and kindness that I've been given. With that said, this chapter is a bit strange, but I promise that things will be explained soon. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: Dragon Ball Z and its characters are the property of Akira Toriyama.
Chapter 3: Ikijigoku
Birds. Somewhere, someplace, birds were chirping. The sun shone brightly behind emerald-leaved trees and insects buzzed as they went along their ways. It was normal, familiar and yet to Yukimora Faye, it seemed all wrong. She was sitting in the woods, with a battered sketchbook tossed casually aside, along with a brown bag that contained her lunch.
This is stupid, the eighteen-year-old had thought with self-deprivation. Everything's fine, I shouldn't be feeling like this. Faye sighed in frustration, brushing a piece of hair out of her eyes.
Yet it feels like something is still…off. What it is, I have no idea. She had been to the forest many times, she wasn't a nature expert, but still knew her way around. Drawing was something she did in her free time, when she wasn't going to school or dealing with her brother Adamu's constant assaults of immaturity.
So what was wrong?
Faye blinked when the sun seemed to glow a little bit brighter and the next thing she knew, the trees and flowers had vanished. She was in a town, her town to be precise and had appeared there in mere seconds. But by the laws of science, something of that nature was impossible.
But here I am…
She began walking slowly, her blue eyes roaming over the familiar buildings and houses. Feeling the hair on the back of her neck rise, Faye shuddered, trying to rid herself of the lingering feelings. It was only when Faye almost tripped over an abandoned ball did she realizing something important. She had been walking for close to ten minutes and hadn't seen hide nor hair of another human being.
No…
Her nervous walk soon became a flat-out run as she made her way through the empty streets and past piles of discarded clothing, toys and vehicles. This can't be happening! She thought vehemently. Where is everyone?
Faye continued to run even as she finally reached the door to her house. It was ajar as usual, for her father was an absentminded man and had a habit of forgetting to close it.
But Faye wasn't paying attention to anything else but entering her house and finding her family doing their typical routines. Her mother would be cooking something foul-smelling on the stove, her father would be holed up in his room like he normally was when "inspiration struck." And Adamu would probably be wadding up pieces of paper to throw at her the moment she ran through the door. That was how things were supposed to be.
But they weren't. Faye cautiously crept into her house, expecting a lecture on taking off and being irresponsible and instead found something far worse. Three disheveled piles of clothes…
~*~
The sound of a scream, one that was closer to an animal's wail, shook Faye back to reality. Her eyes fluttered and she exhaled tiredly. I haven't had that dream in a while. You'd think being dead would grant you some immunity to nightmares, even if they were based on actual events.
She sighed deeply and rubbed her eyes. It took some time for her eyes to readjust to the bright…sunlight? That wasn't right…Faye blinked and felt her heart start to pound. She was lying in an arena that mirrored Cell's to a tee.
Is this my punishment? She pondered apprehensively. An eternity trapped in hell, with this place serving as a reminder of my failure? Faye could feel the first true stirrings of fear moving within her.
There had to be some mistake. Surely trying to kill a deadly mass murderer hadn't warranted such a harsh penalty. Had it? Faye wasn't quite sure. Taking a deep breath, she tried to stand, figuring on feeling some type of pain as she did so. But for once, she was pleasantly surprised.
There was no pain. Not so much as an ache or twinge of her previous agony in the slightest. In astonishment, Faye glanced at her thin hands and frowned. All of her scars, cuts and bruises had vanished, leaving new skin in its place. It was if they had never existed.
Filled with a new type of curiosity, Faye pulled up a torn pant leg to glance at a scar she had received when she was a child and had gotten the idea in her head to try and climb a tall fence. Immediately after accomplishing the feat, she had of course, lost her balance and tumbled to the ground. But not before slicing her leg open on a jagged rock.
Faye openly gasped when she saw no remains of the V-shaped scar that had been an unsightly resident upon her knee. Gone…they're all gone. And then the third greatest shock of the day chose to reveal itself by pounding rapidly within Faye's chest. She could feel her legs go weak as tried to process everything.
A beating heart means I'm not dead…but why? After what I did, I'm surprised Cell didn't tear out my internal organs and use them as trophies. None of this makes sense. Why am I still alive? And where is Cell?
As Faye mused over the unexpected postponement of her untimely death, she never noticed a thin trail of blood slowly begin to seep down her right hand…
~*~
It was implausible…inconceivable…the list continued on. Moments before, Cell had literally dug himself out of a deep trench miles away from his arena. He had no clear explanation for how he had ended up in such a position, his most recent memory was of finally loosing his composure and sending numerous ki-blasts all at once to reduce the obnoxious girl who had dared to first shoot, then spit at him to nothing more than dust.
Logically, she would have been dead and Cell would still have been in his arena, marveling at his own superiority and at her idiocy, at least for a time.
Yet somehow, he had been rendered unconscious and nearly buried, while the girl remained among the living. He could still feel her poor excuse of a ki, which served as evidence enough.
Cell brushed the grimy dirt from his armor and frowned. Had Son Goku decided to sneak in for one of his characteristically dramatic rescues? It would have been nearly impossible for him to do so under normal circumstances without Cell's detection. But the android was also well aware of his prior distraction and wondered if it had proved to be the determining factor in his unexplained rendering and near burial.
Feeling something wet and warm slipping down his hand, Cell's frown deepened. An injury would heal in seconds, but he had never received one outside of combat with the Z-Senshi. That fact alone increased his loathing for his potential victim tenfold.
She may still be alive, but that matter can very easily be remedied, Cell thought maliciously as he powered up and took to the sky. Then, at full speed he flew forward, fury in his magenta eyes and murder on his mind.
!!!!!
