Contradicting Mission
Part 41
"I made a wrong decision, Son Gohan. I can see that now."
Without any specific moment to mark its passing, the Underground was gone. It had vanished.
Where, before, one could see the trembling ground and the heavily shadowed halls, falling clumps of plaster and tile, vision was now replaced with the vast vacuum of empty space, rolling endlessly on into nothingness. Void of all existence save one, single individual.
The small form of a weary boy stood on solid matter that could not be distinguished, his battered and bruised body illuminated by no specific origin of lighting, his head hung low, pale, crimson-streaked face hidden among overhanging dark hair.
And then, suddenly but in no startling manner, there were two people occupying the void, empty habitant. Beside the boy, and slightly behind, stood a second figure. Much taller. Upright, framed by the long pale shadow of pure white hair; a scowl on his fair face, eyes shifting from an excited fuchsia to crimson red, then darkening for a while to black.
Kami Larkas.
"I should never have chosen you for the mission."
Gohan opened his eyes slowly in response to the voice; lashes, stuck together with dried blood, parting with difficulty. He was so very tired. He knew the kami was behind him. Vaguely felt his foreign chi, heard him breathing. He just didn't care at the moment. What he did care about was... that it seemed to be over? Dare he think it? He stopped the thought, filling his mind with a wide space as empty as the world around him, closing his eyes again.
"You succeeded in your mission by the most mediocre of standards; you saved the lives of billions of Aeesu-jin... but through the four of you alone, you have caused the deaths of millions. I find it difficult to want to thank you." The voice of the kami did not seem to hold the utmost sway as it once had. There was still power in it, but something in the kami's hanging shoulders, his curling hands, suggested exhaustion, strained or restraint or weary. He lacked something. Looked mortal. Frustrated, irritated, tired and mortal.
Like Gohan.
The boy tried to lift his head, to create a hurt expression of confusion, but didn't bother to. Curse all things relating to Saiya-jin. That form, that second form was responsible for his lack of will now. He'd only used it twice before, and both times it had taxed his chi nearly to death. "But..."
"The damage, however," the Kami went on saying, hands behind his back, chin tilted to the unknown atmosphere above as though talking more to himself, "is repairable. But it is taking all my power to do so. My concentration as limited as it is, I will not be able to heal you."
Heal... Gohan had forgotten almost entirely about the word. Growing up in a world where fighting and pain had been so common to him, he had also been so used to such swift, easy recovery... senzu seeds, magic healings... Oh, how easy it had been. But it had only taken the near-three weeks spent on Aeesu-sei to completely reprogram him. He had forgotten that there were other ways to heal than to wait for the body to do it on its own.
So he did not care.
However..., "The others?" They were the first words he had spoken, and they came out hollow and wooden, bouncing off no solid matter around him. He sounded muffled. It suited his state of mind. He felt overcome and defeated.
The kami looked away from him a moment, off into the deep nothingness in thought; his pale lips pressed together and he finally sighed, "Garlic and Freeza eventually did help in your endeavor... But as I have done for you, I will also do for them. Nothing. Freeza has been returned to the confines of hell, where his evil soul belongs. Of Garlic Junior... I removed his immortality. It was a sick existence he would hold with life; endless pain and death only to live to see it again. He is dead, now. And condemned to hell, where Bojack is also. I am unable to reward neither Garlic or Freeza more, though their doings on the planet were less horrible and resulted in less deaths than your own."
Gohan's eyes squeezed back together, and his weary arms hugged his starving body tightly, hands gripping opposing shoulders. The only power keeping him from collapsing at the words were pride. Pride of being his father's son. Of being trusted with carrying the name Son Gohan. The deaths... he hadn't thought of it. Not entirely. But... the body count that resulted directly from him were... unbearable. Crushing. The Aeesu-jin that had died in the war between Henning and Heng's men. That was in result of him, Henning's open pursuit of him. And the Aeesu-jin that had perished in the collapse of the Underground. It had been because he, himself, had insisted the transformation inhibitor be turned off.
It had been his own selfishness that caused it; he had wanted his Super Saiya-jin power. Had wanted it with such a burning desire he had not even considered what it might do to the rest of the planet. What was worse was that he hadn't even wanted to transform for a productive reason. He'd wanted to use it against Bojack. Deep down, that was all he wanted. And he had. He had accomplished nothing. Nothing at all.
Behind, tail hung limp and useless, fur smoothed into its grain.
How, then, had he succeeded?
The kami's seeming knack to either read minds or guess correctly at thoughts arose, "You did little to bring on the final safety of that planet... and what you did do was done indirectly." He closed his eyes, white lashes downturned, "But you did do it. I apologize, I don't mean to be angry with you. It was my own fault to chose a mere boy for such a mission. The threat was the Tahch-jins. Both of them. To destroy one would only secure destruction in the other.
"After repeated opportunities, you failed to eliminate either of their threats...," he paused now to look at the boy again, mouth open to scold him for his inadequacies, but something stopped him, seeing the stoop of his narrow shoulders, his slack hands, "Son Gohan, you are such a child still. I forget that when I think long on what you've done. Please look me in the eyes as I continue, to remind me... The Tahch-jin were destroyed by the Aeesu-jin guardian. Heng. Yes, the name is familiar to you. But even after the removal of the original threats the planet was not safe, for you had put it in equal danger through your hasty need to transform. Again, the Aeesu-jin guardian protected his planet. There is no longer a threat existing toward the planet, your reality, or mine."
He said nothing, his fathomless eyes continuing to travel over the boy's face, pinched in the corner, eyeing the horrible bruises that covered him, the blood and the scars, the gentle wheezing he emitted when he exhaled. The heavy bags under his eyes. Traveled down his reed thin form, down his cracked and bleeding shell of a body, constructed of nothing more than sinew and bone. Finally he said, "I should not have chosen you to go. And worse, I should not have sent Bojack with you. For all that he did to you, I offer an apology. For not destroying him sooner, for being unable to intervene, though I'd been watching you since you first set foot on the planet. I am sorry. From the deepest of my heart."
Finally, Gohan responded, hands half-curling at his sides before relaxing as he spoke, "Do one thing for me."
Deliberate hesitation, then, finally, a flash of blue around dark pupils, a response, "Name it and I shall try."
Purple and green grass down-turned under a hard pressure of hot air, then singed and burned themselves black. A white, egg-shaped ship, ringed with circular blue-tinted windows, slowly but surely lifted off the face of a planet and after what felt like a millennia, it broke the atmosphere, suffering little turbulence, and then was free.
Floating weightlessly through gleaming, starry space.
From the interior, looking out at the expanse of endless vacuum, was the reflection of Sunow. He was no longer on the planet Aeesu-sei. And though his hands trembled, with the advance warning and some helpful words from the good doctor, he fought his natural call to transform.
He was an Off-planet, now. He would have no other choice but to control that element of his nature from this day forward, and forever into eternity as long as he lived. Which, by his species standards, would be a very, very long time.
He listened with half an ear as Doctor Koda, with his deep, controlled voice, was trying to talk Forester and Eesei out of their own transformations. And though they had not yet begun to figure out how to convert back to their generic forms, they were not berserk. Merely curious. Perhaps afraid of what had come of their bodies. Forester's voice said something that his father did not catch, to which Eesei laughed nervously. Yes, they would be all right in the end.
In time, they would get control. All off-planet Aeesu-jin children did. Sunow was not concerned on the matter. Looking out the port hole, watching as the jets at the bottom of the egg-shaped ship lit up, and the planet Aeesu-sei grew gradually smaller, until it was nothing more than a small purple-tinted speck, no larger in view than the distant burning stars.
It amazed him, in a matter of two days, since half of the Underground had collapsed, and survivors and less lucky bodies were still being dug out of the rubble of the planet's most tragic disaster in all of its recorded history, how the good doctor had been able to so easily purchase such a ship. It was almost as though he'd been planning to leave, even before Son Gohan had ever graced their lives. Somewhere between those first confusing hours of searching for his children in the wild rolling winds of the Aeesu prairie, and their departure now, Koda had mentioned an Off-planet brother.
Perhaps they would look for him, now.
There was no other plan, after all, in which they had to follow. They were free. No longer needing to worry about assignments. No more worrying about breaking laws or getting arrested or death sentences. No more Backlash. Or Heng. The heavy shackles Sunow had been carrying his whole life without even knowing it had been removed, presenting to him a freedom he did not know existed, and would have in any other situation feared. Any time before, he would have thought becoming a self-exiled Aeesu-jin would be humiliating. Degrading. But he felt proud. Proud to so willingly turn away from the wrong acts the Aeesu-jin people committed without thought.
He remembered, thoughtfully, a conversation he'd had with Son Gohan. It felt like so long ago, now, since the time he had first seen that shy Saiya-jin boy standing in his door way, looking so helpless and uncertain. Or sitting in that restaurant, his thin furry tail twined about his chair's legs, where they had spoken.
'We can't have peace if one Aeesu-jin is out killing another.' Sunow recalled saying, so easily, so matter-of-factly.
The boy never seemed to have to think on what to say. He just said it, and it always caught you off guard in spite of the impossibly soft, gentle tone he used, 'What about people that aren't Aeesu-jin? Is it illegal to kill one of your slaves?'
At that time, he had been unable to respond. Though he knew the answer well.
And with that quiet, soft voice, the issue was pressed, 'If an Aeesu-jin killed me, would it be breaking the rules?'
The answer had to be given: 'No.'
Elbows resting on the window's thin sill, chin resting in hands, as he watched the planets and stars and moons, with their many lovely rings, fly so speedily past the ship. There was perhaps an extra gleam of moisture in his eye as he thought of Son Gohan now. He had been so young and small and quiet, and yet at the same time so enigmatic. He had a power inside of him Sunow had never seen before in one so young. And yet at the same time, by his posture, the way he held his head, he seemed defeated before even stepping up to a fight.
But he was surely dead by now. Killed when the Underground collapsed, along with all the other Aeesu-jin. Or if he survived, he would either starve, buried and bruised under the rubble, or be killed if he was found before that. There had been no way to help him. And though it greatly saddened him, Sunow was proud that, at the risk of destroying his own planet, he had followed through with the boy's last request.
Perhaps in death, his young soul would find peace at last.
"Good luck... Son Gohan," he whispered into the far reaches of space, his breath clouding the glass for a moment.
And then as the fogged reflection cleared, he became aware through his vision in the blue tinted glass that someone was standing behind him. Someone too tall to be either of his children. Someone much too short and too thin to be the good doctor. Someone with wild, bristly short hair. Dark hair. And a gray-blue, shredded body suit...
He realized the good doctor was no longer talking. He heard Forester gasp.
"Sunow-san?" It was more acknowledgment than a question. A voice, high-toned, soft and refined but heavy with exhaustion.
The green Aeesu-jin father felt as though it were in slow motion that he turned, delicate lips parted in wonder, eyes wide as they could possibly go, and once he'd finished his complete half circle, his back now to the window, the entire world around him, his children, now quiet with their shock, the large round form of the Aeesu-jin doctor, space itself, the ship, the stars, everything froze, as this new figure aboard the ship was recognized.
"Son Gohan!"
It was never made clear exactly who yelled it, for in each person's head they had mentally screamed the same two words.
And then all peace and unity and the joining of all things in surprise broke and shattered into a million pieces as each individual moved on their own account, voices filling the ship, greetings, questions, shouts of joy, of surprise, of celebration and congratulation; they were packed in around the boy, patting him on the back, ruffling his hair, touching his arms and his hands, looking into his eyes to make sure that it honestly was him, that it really was, entirely out of the empty space, the same child they had all assumed dead or at the mercy of the merciless Heng.
And though the tight space and the seeming thousands of voices and the feeling of good-natured fingers obviously made the boy nervous, frightened him, he couldn't help but to smile his small, polite but amazingly warm smile, laughing a quiet, breathy laugh, tolerating the overwhelming attention, Eesei held in his thin arms. His dark, sharp eyes, dulled with exhaustion but still bright as sparkling twin stars, were centered on the two adults, Sunow and the good doctor, in a knowing, silent way.
The noise slowed down as an awareness passed through them, even to the smallest child Eesei. A sense of confusion and awe and wonder and... sadness.
But it was the smallest child, her tail coiled around the boy's waist, that finally voiced it, "Where'd Son Gohan come from?" She looked at her father, then her brother, as though wondering if she had asked something inappropriate, "Was'n he on Aeesu-sei...?"
Gohan looked her in the eyes a moment, gaze unwavering, then looked back up again, "I can't stay long. I just... wanted to say good bye. And thank you. Thank all of you." He squeezed the tiny girl in his arms, then set her down again.
"You're finally leaving then." The good doctor's words were statements, not questions.
"Yes," the boy said, a ghost of his former smile on his lips, though somehow this limited expression seemed more sincere. Better summed the true emotions he felt. His eyes did not hold any promise of smile. "I'm finally done. Your pl... The planet Aeesu is safe. I can go home."
Slowly, deliberately, so as not to cause him to draw away, Doctor Koda extended his arm and put a thumb and forefinger to the boy's chin, turning his head one way and another, a haunting look of sickness in his eyes as he took in with a medic's eye the extent of injuries on this pale face alone, taking the liberty to lift his hair off his forehead, pretending to not notice the way the boy battled with terror and the urge to flinch away, to not notice the way he trembled with someone so large at so close a proximity. And the ghostly look in his large dark eyes, the notion that there was nothing behind them, or if there was it would take a long fall into them to find it. One could get lost if they entered those eyes, those windows to his battered and subdued soul. Even the boy seemed partially lost within himself.
Some damages took longer a time to heal, even if they could not be seen. And, perhaps, some scars never did fade away. But he could hope. Hope that all injuries would fade... with time.
"I'm glad." Was all he said, nodding his head, his great curved horns cutting the air. "Though I do not know what planet you call home, nor would I dare to ask. I pray you never have to return to Aeesu-sei again. Live in peace, Son Gohan." And, at an arms length, he offered a hand.
The boy's own hand, less than half the size of the doctors, took it and, his small fingers lost in Koda's, they shook, eyes meeting eyes, blood red meeting sleight black. And then their hands parted. They would never meet again.
And Gohan suddenly became aware that Forester was now standing before him, hands fisted at his sides, dark lips pushed together into a thin green line. The strain he used to keep the glittering tears to stay within the confines of his eyes shook his entire body. "I'm... glad you're not dead." His voice was higher than usual, though he tried to keep it deep and mature, his next words rushed, "And I do hope that Bojack is dead. I hope he died horribly... and suffered... and... and bled..."
"Please," Gohan said, quiet voice desperate, taking each of Forester's hands and shaking them, "If you hate him, don't be like him. Don't hold onto hate... don't wish pain or suffering on anyone. Just... just enjoy peace when you have it, don't squander it on hopes of death and destruction. You're alive, and your sister is alive and," he was battling his own tears, now, though one escaped him and slowly rolled over the coagulated blood on his cheek, "And your father is still alive. Forester, you have everything that you'll ever truly need on this ship right now. Don't desire for anything else, especially for the unhappiness of another."
Forester swiped the back of his arm over his eyes and held it there a moment, his breath irregular, "Okay, Son Gohan. If... if that is the only thing you're going to ask of me, then... I'll honor it." Lowering his arm from his face, meeting, searching Gohan's eyes, "Don't you hate Bojack at least? After everything he's done to you, after... after hitting you like that, you deserve the right to... don't you at least get to hate him?"
The Saiya-jin boy was silent for a spell, his tears quelling themselves, the Aeesu-jins around him not prompting him, but each wishing for an answer, silent themselves as they weighed the limits of their own souls. Finally, the only reply, "Bojack is dead. I saw him die, right before me. I... will ask for nothing more than that."
"You kill 'im?" Eesei asked, head canted at an angle; never before had she entirely comprehended the word 'kill' before meeting Gohan. But she understood it. And perhaps it was she, alone, that harbored no desire of destruction upon anyone or anything. She only wanted her Papa and her brother For'ster, and... and her extended brother Son Gohan to be happy. For everyone to be happy.
And she was still too young to realize that such a thing was impossible.
"No." Gohan said, kneeling down to her level, hugging her around her little body, holding her tightly, remembering his own little brother, "No, I did not kill him. And I'm... glad that I did not. Never kill. There is nothing good about it. Nothing good in killing. Don't do it. Don't you ever do it, or let your brother do it, or your Papa or anyone. Hate killing. Hate death. Hate pain. Just... just do what you believe in your heart is right."
"I w'll," her high-pitched voice was muffled in his shoulder, and though she did not entirely understand the great expanse of what he was asking, and though she was only two, at the border of three, she would remember his words, for the duration of her long life. And would carry them close. And honor her promise. As would her brother.
And in her young mind, she would for years remember the way his warm-blooded arms felt when he wrapped them around her cold-blooded reptilian body. And she did not entirely notice when he let go of her. And she was not aware of anything else hours later, after Son Gohan had vanished from the ship and her life and her universe entirely, forever.
Sunow had said very little, and still said very little, even as he stood, face to face, with the boy he had thought dead. "Son Gohan." And he offered his small, pale green hand, as the good doctor had done.
The boy walked passed the extended hand and wrapped his arms around the Aeesu-jin's shoulders. And closed his eyes. And, soundless and unnoticed by the boy, more warm tears ran down his face, dripped from his chin, and onto the Aeesu-jin father's shoulder. This Aeesu-jin father, who had spoken to him when no one else found reason to bother to. This Aeesu-jin father who gave his entire life up, everything he had but his two children, just to aid him.
The Aeesu-jin father who had given him an opportunity to have a warm bath and a drink of hot coffee when he had been cold.
The Aeesu-jin father who had been his friend.
"Thank you," was all he said, "Thank you."
And it was all that needed to be said.
And then, flinching, turning his head to a side as though hearing a noise none else could, "I have to go now."
He stepped back from them all as they bunched together, and he said to himself, Click. And closed his eyes, ingraining the mental image of the four of them from the insides of his eyelids to his powerful memory: Forester, tears trailing down his cheeks, looking down, fists curled at his sides as he finally gave way to tears that pride had always battled before. The good doctor, Doctor Koda, his large orange frame and curved bullhorns and immense chest and stomach, long tail poised behind him. Eesei, eyes closed, head tilted back as though in deep thought, fingers relaxed at her sides, tail slack against the ground. Sunow. Sunow, looking him square in the eyes, caring and careful, his delicate green lips turned up in a smile of fondness. Now. Now, forever, I will keep a photograph of them in my head. I won't forget a single detail. Not ever.
But by that time, he was no longer on the ship. No longer in that space. No longer in that time. And no longer on such a task that went against his very principles, no longer required to accomplish something his entire being was against from the depths of his soul.
No longer on such a contradicting mission, of pain and torment and... and affection for what would have been the considered to him the enemy for all time. Of two brothers, dead, without bodies left behind to ever mark the passing of their existence.
A phone was ringing.
There were no phones on Aeesu-sei. There were computer terminals. And no sunlight. The warmth felt now, and the shade of the warmth, were not creations of the sunlight on Aeesu-sei's surface.
A phone was still ringing.
The smell of... oak. And maple trees. And the fresh smell of blue spruce and cedar.
Those trees did not grow on Aeesu-sei.
The ringing continued.
But there were no phones on Aeesu-sei.
But someone really ought to answer it. Feeling along the wall... up to the phone cradle, feel the vibrations of the ringing through the receiver. Ringing...
"Hello?"
"Gohan! What happened over there, anyway? Did you drop the phone or something?"
"I... I was..."
"... Gohan?"
"Kuririn-san..."
"Woops, sorry, but I have to go. Juuhachi and I are going to catch a movie. Good luck with your studying! Catch ya later!"
Click.
A vision of Aeesu-jin faces. An Aeesu-jin boy, crying, head turned downward under tears...
His shoulder ached. His left shoulder. It always ached on days with high humidity... ever since stepping in front of Cell's blast... To save Vegita-san. Who was going to be killed. Like Sunow-san. Killed by Backlash because...
No, that was a different time.
His tail went to wind around his leg.
He had no tail. Not for a long time. Hadn't since... No, it had curled between his legs after a humiliating beating... Blue fists, lava hair... with rain soaking his Saiya-jin body suit.
Slowly, he re-hung the phone on its cradle.
There were no phones on Aeesu.
He finally realized that his eyes were still closed. He hadn't opened them yet. Not since... since taking a "picture" of Sunow, Forester, Eesei and Doctor Koda. On Aeesu... no, on a space ship. They were Off-planets...
He opened his eyes.
To a vision of his own living room. His living room. Not... not his capsule house... his capsule house living room was destroyed. By the Tahch-jin...
He took his first steps in this room, when he was hardly a year old. He had slept on his father's warm chest on lazy winter days in this room, watching the fire place spit with the still-wet wood it burned. He ate a bowl of grapes in this room once, and watched as it hailed outside the window, creating such an amazing sound as it struck the roof.
It was in this room that he had told his mother that his father was not coming home from a certain fight. That he was not coming home ever, because he had given his life for...
He was on his knees, running his hands along the planks of wood of the floor, pulling a floor rug to his face, smelling it, smelling his mother on it. And his brother. And if he concentrated hard enough he could still smell his father, though it had been two years since he had last been in the house...
He was crying. Silently. In mourning anew. In relief. In grief. Because he could. In his own house. Not wedged between two boulders, bruised and battered, covering his head in case any new blows chose to rain down on him, as the heavens also rained down on him...
Bruised...
He was no longer bruised. Through his tears, he looked to his arms, his legs, his body. He had on his gi. His orange and blue gi, fashioned after his father's. His flesh was only covered in old scars. No new cuts. No new bruises. Not even a single rip in his armband. Rolled over onto his bottom, pulled his pant leg out of his boot, rolled it up. No messy scar on his leg. No hole where a blast of chi had once torn clear through it.
His left shoulder hurt in the humidity. Where he had taken a blast from Cell. His fingers rested on it. But... it had been healed by... Kami Larkas.
He and the kami had spoken. Spoken more.
He rose to his feet again, stumbled to the bathroom, leaned over the sink, looked himself in the eye.
And rose his hand to trace a finger along the thin, deep scar on his cheek. Where an Aeesu-jin tail had once caught him.
"I am sending you home now, Son Gohan."
He couldn't take his eyes off the boy in the mirror.
"I cannot heal you. But..."
A boy he did not know... Pale skin, dark hair.
"I can return you to as you were. As though I had never before healed you. As though you never had met me."
"Arigatou... Wait, not yet. I... Leave something behind. This scar on my face. So that I don't forget. So that I cannot make myself forget..."
Tears on his cheeks. Eyes red. He splashed cool water over his face, then again, watching as the droplets fell from his cheeks. From his chin. From his bangs. In his front pocket, he felt his capsule case. The Tahch-jin had stolen it. But he had it back.
Were he to open it, he knew the living room would still be wreaked.
He removed the case and set it on the toilet. He didn't want it right now.
He went to his room, where he found it as he had left it. Went to his closet, got out a white house shirt, embroidered on the sleeves with the small, white bell-shaped flowers of lily of the valley. Black slacks. Took them off their hangers, and removed his gi, hung it up with care. Pulled on the house clothes. His mother had bought them for him. He could smell her on them.
And sat down at his desk, where the work his mother had asked him to do was half way done. He picked up his pencil in his right hand, and began to write, his left hand cupping his cheek, finger tracing the scar there. Thinking of a boy's pale green face, streaked with tears. Of a little girl's canted head, pink and young and thoughtful. Of a father, whose horns curved behind him like a ram, looking him in the eye, corners of his delicate mouth turned upward. Of a doctor, a good doctor, who had once taken him to see Saiya-jins. And who had dragged him out of a resulting riot with his own two large, orange arms.
Hours later, the high, loud voice of his little brother would fill the house, echo to his room. And the voice of his mother, and her soft foot steps and the rustle of paper sacks, calling for him to come help her carry in groceries, asking him how his studying had gone.
And he would go down to greet them. Without a sound or a word, he would wrap his arms around them both.
And say, "Hai, Okaasan. My studying went well. Kuririn-san called, but I didn't talk long. You sit down, I'll carry in the rest of the groceries."
And would not answer her when she asked what had happened to his face. Until after the scar had faded and she forgot about it. But he could still feel it, if he put his finger tips to it.
Click.
And would still remember four Aeesu-jin faces. One smiling. One crying. One thoughtful. One wise.
And two Tahch-jin chi's, merged into one, snuff like a candle.
What are you... a coward?!
No, Tousan. Not anymore.
I've done so much, all by myself.
So you'll forgive me, won't you?
Tousan?
The End
Previous Part -- Contradicting Mission
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