Disclaimer: Hmm, I always forget to say this, but I do not own Dragonball z or any of the characters mentioned herewith. Like, duh :P
Chapter four - windows
'My eyes are an ocean in which my dreams are reflected...
-Anna M. Uhlich
Vegeta's relationship with Mrs Briefs was an unusual one for him.
Breakfast was normally a solitary meal for Vegeta. Bulma was seldom up before midday, and her parents usually ate as soon as they woke. Vegeta always took care to time his entrance until just after the pair had finished. Mrs. Briefs would cock her head to one side and smile at him, setting his breakfast on the table while keeping up a stream of empty-headed chatter. Vegeta submitted to the torture in silence, partly because there was no one to witness his slip in character, but mostly because he had never had anyone talk to him like that in his life. Not submissively, like Nappa would, nor derisively like Zarbon or Ginyu, but someone who just wanted to be friendly. It was a new experience, to be treated like he was just the same as everyone else. Vegeta cherished the blind good nature of his hostess and was determined to keep any thing from ruining her good will. Therefore when Mrs Briefs asked him to fetch Bulma out for lunch, Vegeta had turned without a word to go in search of her, despite the delay in his own meal.
It didn't take him too long to find her anyway. She was standing in the courtyard with another woman and that fool Yamcha.
Yamcha. Vegeta scowled just to see him. What was he doing here? Vegeta had thought that he was gone for good when the onna kicked him out for the umpteenth time a month or two ago. He felt the hackles on the back of his neck rising as he watched him talk and laugh with Bulma. A stray recollection of last night flashed unbidden before his eyes, and he swallowed, flushing slightly underneath his customary scowl. He controlled the urge to blast the fool to high heaven and walked over to the small group, knowing that his mere presence would discomfort Yamcha enough to make him take his leave quickly, unless the coward was feeling particularly courageous today. Vegeta snorted to himself. Not likely.
As he drew near, Bulma was introducing the other woman to Yamcha, who was staring at her with appreciation.
"Yamcha, this is Tshibo Kalika. She runs the promotion department in Capsule Corp."
Vegeta heard the introduction without interest. Bulma's friend had no discernable ki level, and did not smell of danger. Plus, the look on Yamcha's face was making him slightly sick. He was about to turn away without acknowledging them at all, when he caught a strange scent in the air. He identified it as the one he had sensed in the courtyard a few days before. This time, however, he recognised it as the faint scent of a flower he knew.
The scent was radiating off the Tshibo woman that Bulma was introducing. He turned towards the woman, his pulse quickening. He knew that flower, and there was no way he should have been able to sense it here.
The woman Bulma was talking with was tall, with long dark hair tied demurely in a smooth braid that hung down her back. She was pretty, he supposed, her features regular and unblemished, and her eyes bright. She was dressed neatly, but as casually as Bulma, in a white shirt and dark blue jeans, by which Vegeta identified her as an executive of the company. Only important people, Vegeta had learned, had enough authority to disregard standard uniform codes.
She seemed normal.
Vegeta stared at her, trying urgently to detect what was unusual about this woman, and how she could possibly smell like a flower long since crushed out of existence.
Feeling his eyes on her, the woman turned. Soft dark brown eyes met his own. Vegeta seized the opportunity, and probed deeper, lightly brushing aside the barriers that were around her mind, trying to discover who she was. His eyes widened at what he found, and he withdrew his tiny sliver of consciousness hastily, carefully smoothing over the place he had touched with his mind. She relaxed as he rubbed the memory of his intrusion away, and was now staring at him curiously.
As was everyone else. The whole group had noticed the interaction between Vegeta and Kalika, and had stopped to observe. Vegeta could feel Bulma's eyes boring into him from behind without even turning his head.
Keeping his face carefully expressionless as always, he turned away from the group without a word and stared out into the distance. The group stared at him for a while longer, until the sudden surprised silence was broken by the appearance of Bulma's mother, come to find out why Vegeta had not brought back her daughter yet. Yamcha took advantage of the situation, and escorted Kalika away to the employee restaurant, leaving Vegeta relieved that he would not have to sit though a meal with that fool present. Bulma turned to go in with him, and he could feel her staring thoughtfully at him still.
As he returned to the Briefs kitchen however, Vegeta's mind was far from the blue haired woman beside him. Instead, Vegeta was immersed in memories. He wondered wryly at the strange twistings of fate. He had thought never to see her again. She looked different now, which was why he had not recognised her from the first.
She didn't remember him. Indeed, it had been so long now, he had all but forgotten her. And yet they had both turned up on the same mudball, in the same house even, against all the odds of ever meeting again. It was almost enough to make him believe in some kind of universal justice.
Almost.
That night, Jalen sat in front of a monitor he had borrowed from work and looked over at Remmy. "Are you sure you understand what you need to do?" he asked.
Remmy growled an affirmative. Jalen looked at the monitor and then back at Remmy again uneasily. "We've never done it like this before. I think I will go over it one last time, just to make sure we've got it right."
Remmy rolled his eyes, but did not complain.
"Now, firstly, you need to catch Ms Briefs in a mind trap. It doesn't matter what sort, just a memory of some kind. A more recent one would be preferable, from no less than three months ago. Hopefully that will encourage her mind to adapt to it as quickly as possible. We know that Vegeta is watching over her, he will be ready for this. Most likely he will first try and find where we are. The way he jumped out of the dream last night implies that he will not be overly eager to enter her consciousness again," Jalen laughed quietly. "Of all things, Vegeta does not like losing control. When he comes looking for us, that's when I want you to cast the dream I prepared earlier at him. It's very subtle, more of a suggestion, then a full blown fantasy. If that works, he should be forced to enter into the woman's dream, thinking her in danger." Jalen paused, and looked intently at Remmy, making sure he was being understood. Remmy gave a little chirp, and Jalen went on. "Give him five minutes or so to let him get settled into the dream," he instructed, "then jump from Bulma's mind into Vegeta's. "
He looked hard at Remmy. "Now, this is very important. If you can, you need to try and confine his memories to ten years ago, and a planet named Athus. It has red dirt and not many buildings. Vegeta's subconscious should be able to supply the rest of the memory. Don't let him wander off track. This is very important. If you lose control, we might never find what we came here for."
Jalen took the collar from the desk beside the monitor. "I will be recording everything that happens from here," he said as he snapped it around Remmy's neck. "If you feel like you are losing control, tell me, and I will disconnect the traps."
He adjusted a few of the faintly glowing knobs on Remmy's collar, then sat back.
"Are you ready?"
Remmy looked steadily at his master.
"Good," said Jalen. "Lets do it."
Vegeta retreated to his room early that night to escape Bulma. It seemed like every time he had turned around today, she was there, watching him thoughtfully with that speculative expression on his face. It was driving him nuts.
Vegeta shook his head, trying to rid himself of the errant thoughts that had plagued him all day. A tiny voice whispered traitorously in the back of his mind that perhaps Bulma wasn't the only one who was having trouble concentrating. He scowled, his ki flaring for a second before he calmed himself. No good thinking about that now, he scolded himself. Time enough later to think of that.
He settled down. He had to try and find the intruder tonight. Vegeta had failed to find anything but lingering traces of the strange creatures despite searching all day. They were purposely covering their tracks, which led Vegeta to believe that the intruders would try again.
He felt Bulma settle down into sleep above him, and became alert, waiting for the creature to make its move. He extended his senses very slowly, searching for the strange traces that meant a mental trap was being sprung. He pressed slowly down towards Bulma's personal lab, sure that they would be there again. However, when he got there, he found nothing. He waited for a moment, unsure of where to go from there, when he felt a rushing sound go past him. Vegeta swore, and turned to follow it. It must have been waiting for him to drift away from Bulma before it attacked. Faster than thought, he raced up to Bulma's room, but he was too late. Her ki signature was already erased, and she was obviously deep in the throes of a mental trap.
There was nothing else for it. Taking a deep breath, Vegeta pressed forward slowly, once more entering Bulma's head.
Bulma was beginning to be really mad at Yamcha. They had been standing out on the lawn of Capsule Corp arguing. Or, rather, she was fighting with him, and he was trying to fend her off. Ordinarily, when Yamcha was contrite enough, she would take pity on him and take her anger out on someone else. He was her boyfriend after all.
But today her temper was at the breaking point and she was attempting to work out her frustrations on the nearest object. Yamcha's jelly-fish-like cowering was irritating beyond belief. She was in a bad mood, and wanted desperately for a good fight to clear the air, but Yamcha was stubbornly refusing to respond to her taunts. She summoned up her last reserves in a vain hope that something would provoke him sufficiently for him to wake up and fight properly.
A group of girls walked past, giggling and waving flirtatiously at Yamcha. He smiled at them in response, waving back. Bulma pounced.
"There you go again, flirting with everything in a skirt. I can't believe you! You don't even care if I am here or not! "
Yamcha's eyes widened, and he waved his hands desperately. "No, babe, I didn't mean it like that-"
"Don't you dare call me babe! Most people would at least have the decency not to flirt with girls until their girlfriends are gone!"
"But I-"
"Tell me, are you going to have them all at once, or do you plan on savouring them one at a time?"
"What makes you think I haven't had them already?"
Bulma paused mid-tirade, staring at Yamcha in shock. He was watching her with a suddenly challenging expression on his face.
"What?" she faltered.
He smirked. "Are you hard of hearing? Or perhaps it is your brain that is impaired."
Bulma's eyes widened, then flashed red with anger. "How dare you!" she practically screamed. "I let you into my home, I feed you and clothe you at no expense to myself, and this is what I get in return?"
Yamcha scowled at her. "You don't feed me, you're parents do. Therefore, I don't see that I have a responsibility to pander after your every frivolous whim."
"This is NOT your home! You do not belong here!" Bulma screamed, then faltered when Yamcha didn't reply. She looked up to meet his dark eyes, and was caught.
Yamcha's usually mobile face was now blank, but his eyes were filled with a peculiar kind of anguish. She took a step forward, drawn by the incredible desolation. For an instant, Bulma glimpsed pain and loneliness fighting for supremacy in his dark eyes, open and frighteningly defenceless; and in the next instant they flashed in the light, and he was no longer vulnerable.
She stared at Yamcha, her mind reeling. That wasn't Yamcha. He might look like her boyfriend, and sound like her boyfriend, but suddenly Bulma was sure that she was standing in front of a stranger. She couldn't say what she had glimpsed for a moment inside the man who looked like her boyfriend. It was something that Bulma would never forget, something that couldn't be described even to herself. Somehow, while she was looking in his eyes, she had slipped inside his soul for a moment. And his soul was filled with pain.
His face was unemotional now, with nothing lingering in his eyes but anger. Bulma stared at him, trying vainly for another glimpse of what she had seen before, but the wall was back in place. Yamcha was now looking at her warily, distrustfully, an expression she had never seen on his face before.
"You're not Yamcha."
Her boyfriend glared at her. "You noticed."
"But then who are you?" Bulma asked desperately, then hesitated as the memories came rushing back. "…I know you…don't I?"
The man who looked like Yamcha had turned away, pretending to ignore her as he scanned the horizon. Bulma however could see the muscles in his arm were tense, as if he were on edge waiting for her conclusion. She took a step forward and caught his arm, tugging him around to look around at her, his dark eyes boring into her own.
His dark eyes…
Memories flashed before her mind. His dark eyes glaring at her, demanding she give up the dragonballs. His dark eyes crazed with battle lust, triumphant and gloating as he stood over the body of her friend. His dark eyes mocking her, baiting her, playing a game of one-upmanship she could never back down from. His dark eyes, filled with horror and self-loathing in an unshielded moment. His dark eyes, burning with anger that she would trespass on his mind.
"Vegeta," she breathed.
Some unidentifiable emotion flashed across Yamcha's face, gone almost before Bulma could register it was there at all. Was it fear she saw? Surprise? Or something else? He opened his mouth, and looked as if he were about to speak when the world flickered.
Bulma blinked, suddenly disorientated as her surroundings went out of focus. Rainbow colours swam before her eyes for a second and she felt her stomach turn uneasily as the ground beneath her feet lurched. Losing her balance, she fell to the ground, hitting the red dirt hard. She looked up at Vegeta, who had abandoned whatever he was going to say, and was now watching the horizon with a taut expression on his face, his body compensating easily for the motion of the ground.
Warned by his wary expression, Bulma looked around as well, and was dazed to see that their surroundings had changed. Gone were the green openness and white buildings of Capsule Corp. The two of them were standing in a desert. Red dirt stretched as far as the eye could see, unbroken by buildings or structures of any kind. Dark smoke clouded the horizon, and the air had a sharp taste to it, like rusted tin.
Bulma tasted it on her lips and went cold. She knew that smell. She had smelt it before, on the bodies of her friends, and on the slaughter fields of Namek.
Blood.
Bulma pushed herself trembling to her feet and stared around slowly, afraid of what she might see, but nothing distinct was visible through the smoke. Alas, she was not so lucky about the noise.
Bulma shivered uncontrollably at the sounds. Screams and cries and wails coiled and recoiled in the still air, filled with such anguish and pain as she had never heard in her life. She sunk to her knees, biting her lip to keep from crying. A confusion of tongues and monstrous accents toiled in pain and anger seemingly just out of sight. Voices hoarse and shrill were mirrored by sounds of blows striking flesh. Soundless tears rolled down her face. This was a terror she had never felt before. Surrounded by pain and torment, the horror-filled screams that rent the air destroyed what wits she had left.
A touch on her shoulder. Bulma flinched violently, and looked up. Vegeta was standing above her, a strange expression on his face.
"We must go. Now."
Bulma tried to push herself to her feet, but her legs would not hold her. She collapsed to the ground again, whimpering. "I can't get up."
Vegeta grabbed her arm unceremoniously and was about to pull her roughly to her feet when he stopped suddenly.
Bulma looked up in surprise, and saw his face go ashen under its tan.
"What is it?" she said
Vegeta said nothing, staring at something she couldn't see through the smoke.
"Vegeta! What's wrong?!"
He didn't even look at her, still staring at something in the distance with the impassive expression that Bulma had come to recognize as Vegeta hiding emotion. She made another effort to get to her feet, energized by the terror of the situation. She tugged at his arm again, trying to get him to move.
"Come on Vegeta, there's no time for this. You have to help me get out of here!"
At last he turned and looked at her bleakly. "We can't now," he said calmly. Shaking off her hand on his arm, he faced back the way he had been staring, something indefinable in his eyes.
"It's too late."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hiya guys! Next time in Aishiteru, something drastic has gone wrong with Jalen's plan. Vegeta and Bulma are in for some trouble as they try and find a way out of the dream-trap Remmy has woven. Will they make it? Find out in the next chapter of Aishiteru ^_^
To scoured_earth, snowbell101,Tempest12, DBZ Fanfiction Queen, MyStIcSaIyAn45, Bebi_Mara_Jade, DBZ-fan-JESS and Lilac Cherry Blossoms; Thank you so much for reviewing ^_^ Sorry this wasn't up sooner, but my lazy act kicked in, and I spent the weekend partying in Orange instead of writing *cowers in shame* Won't happen again. Next chapter should be up in a few days. Stay tuned !
