"Raindrops"
by Acey
Author's Note: Sorry for the wait-- I actually have some very good excuses concerning it, but I'm not going to list them. Suffice it to say that a lot came up between last update and now. =) Don't fret, I will and am continuing.
Disclaimer: If I owned DBZ, the characters would hardly do more than stand and talk because of my lack of ability at drawing action poses. Or many DBZ characters in general.
He continued, letting the scenes replay themsleves as he took a left on to another highway, people, regardless of what they were driving (if they were even driving at all) moving immediately out of his way, police, determined, unaware of the futility of attempting the chase. The roads there were damaged somewhat, broken from the earthquake of the night before, but overall it was the same scenario, played by a different cast. The only one from the original ensemble was Juunanagou. Juunanagou, looking out the rearview mirror at the chaos.
It failed for the first time to bring any expression of sadistic satisfaction to his face to mock the inferiority of the humans. In the old days Juuhachigou would have rolled her eyes at him at this and said something caustically affectionate, if that were possible. He would have replied in turn, cutting her down somewhat as well, but they were pretenses, jokes. Behind the malice had been a slightly kinder side.
He glared, eyes, created to view anything and everything worth looking at but still unseeing as he turned finally from the sight and toward his destination.
**********************************************************************
Juuhachigou took notice of the shards of the plate on the floor and picked up the broom and dustpan in the corner, mind elsewhere, blue eyes the only savage note on an otherwise impassive face. A face and mindset meant to prove the uselessness of the things referred to as human emotions, a maddeningly flawless masterpiece of science in a severely flawed world. Nothing was ever truly intended to exist behind the outward beauty but mechanisms. Mechanisms and the tiniest piece of the organic left over as an afterthought, an unreachable memory of what had been and what would never be again.
She swept the floor with less efficiency than a car without fuel, angry still.
Juunanagou had never possessed much luck that she recalled. His humanity had been gone for close to twenty years, maybe more. He had been absorbed and killed by a monster, had then been blown up along with the planet seven years later, left to live like an exile in the woods, an exile with no apparent reason for the banishment.
No, there was reason behind it, she thought as she pushed away the fragments absentmindedly with her broom. Pride. Egotism, holding him back, forever keeping her brother her doppelganger. Immature, juvenile pride that ought to have been long since forgotten.
"Juuhachi?"
She glanced up and found her husband, sooty eyes concerned under black hair, compassion and a willingness to help almost written on his face. Kindness, compassion.
Human decency outdid stark perfection any day.
"Yes."
"Your brother-- he'll--"
Juuhachigou let the few fragments she had swept up fall into the trash can before facing Kuririn.
"He won't come back."
**********************************************************************
Juunanagou passed through another town, each more rural than the last, traffic (if there was any) to a bare minimum, pedestrians slim to none. He let them walk on. They could go ahead and live for awhile longer. There wasn't any pleasure in it, at least, there wasn't any at the moment. He was getting closer anyway, the broken road and number of earthquake-fallen trees told him that much easily. A little longer left, that was all, and he'd be back.
iWhy take a car when you can fly?/i
Juuhachi. Likely not her exact words, but the same meaning, same implication, in her slightly dull monotone. His sister, her husband's angel and daughter's mother who reportedly couldn't cook, the decent one. She had come--
He shook his head in frustration and aimed a blast at the first thing he saw, barely stopping the car before doing so, barely bothering to check to see what it was that he had hit.
It had been a memory. Just a memory, a recording, really, found in a myriad file and replayed unconsiously in his mind, so he thought that he heard her, thought that he heard her double-edged remark of almost two decades before. A miserable, unwitting attempt at self-consolation.
He left the car four miles from his target and flew the rest of the way.
**********************************************************************
Marron took down her sign at the front of the Kame House's door, folding it halfheartedly and stuffing it in a box full of faded holiday decorations from the years before, left to be forgotten for good.
"'Welcome, Uncle Juunanagou,"' she read from her banner, unsurely, not knowing whether to be bitter or to just attempt to hope for the best. Closing the box, she chose the latter and went back upstairs to see if Master Roshi was awake. "'Welcome.'"
**********************************************************************
He found it thirty-one point six-seven-four seconds later according to his internal clock. Or what was left of it. A few small masses of logs nailed together had remained, rubble, nothing more.
So Juuhachigou had been right. The earthquake had been coming directly in his cabin's direction, and had destroyed it.
Fine. He could rebuild the thing, and rebuild it soon, if he didn't start with the old game of seeing just how long it would take if he tried to do it with next to no strength. Their strength, the human strength. An hour or so, give or take ten minutes, if he didn't try to divert himself with that distraction.
'Nails, you idiot,' he thought. 'See if there're still enough--'
"Juunanagou."
**********************************************************************
Author's Note: Sorry for the wait-- I actually have some very good excuses concerning it, but I'm not going to list them. Suffice it to say that a lot came up between last update and now. =) Don't fret, I will and am continuing.
Disclaimer: If I owned DBZ, the characters would hardly do more than stand and talk because of my lack of ability at drawing action poses. Or many DBZ characters in general.
He continued, letting the scenes replay themsleves as he took a left on to another highway, people, regardless of what they were driving (if they were even driving at all) moving immediately out of his way, police, determined, unaware of the futility of attempting the chase. The roads there were damaged somewhat, broken from the earthquake of the night before, but overall it was the same scenario, played by a different cast. The only one from the original ensemble was Juunanagou. Juunanagou, looking out the rearview mirror at the chaos.
It failed for the first time to bring any expression of sadistic satisfaction to his face to mock the inferiority of the humans. In the old days Juuhachigou would have rolled her eyes at him at this and said something caustically affectionate, if that were possible. He would have replied in turn, cutting her down somewhat as well, but they were pretenses, jokes. Behind the malice had been a slightly kinder side.
He glared, eyes, created to view anything and everything worth looking at but still unseeing as he turned finally from the sight and toward his destination.
**********************************************************************
Juuhachigou took notice of the shards of the plate on the floor and picked up the broom and dustpan in the corner, mind elsewhere, blue eyes the only savage note on an otherwise impassive face. A face and mindset meant to prove the uselessness of the things referred to as human emotions, a maddeningly flawless masterpiece of science in a severely flawed world. Nothing was ever truly intended to exist behind the outward beauty but mechanisms. Mechanisms and the tiniest piece of the organic left over as an afterthought, an unreachable memory of what had been and what would never be again.
She swept the floor with less efficiency than a car without fuel, angry still.
Juunanagou had never possessed much luck that she recalled. His humanity had been gone for close to twenty years, maybe more. He had been absorbed and killed by a monster, had then been blown up along with the planet seven years later, left to live like an exile in the woods, an exile with no apparent reason for the banishment.
No, there was reason behind it, she thought as she pushed away the fragments absentmindedly with her broom. Pride. Egotism, holding him back, forever keeping her brother her doppelganger. Immature, juvenile pride that ought to have been long since forgotten.
"Juuhachi?"
She glanced up and found her husband, sooty eyes concerned under black hair, compassion and a willingness to help almost written on his face. Kindness, compassion.
Human decency outdid stark perfection any day.
"Yes."
"Your brother-- he'll--"
Juuhachigou let the few fragments she had swept up fall into the trash can before facing Kuririn.
"He won't come back."
**********************************************************************
Juunanagou passed through another town, each more rural than the last, traffic (if there was any) to a bare minimum, pedestrians slim to none. He let them walk on. They could go ahead and live for awhile longer. There wasn't any pleasure in it, at least, there wasn't any at the moment. He was getting closer anyway, the broken road and number of earthquake-fallen trees told him that much easily. A little longer left, that was all, and he'd be back.
iWhy take a car when you can fly?/i
Juuhachi. Likely not her exact words, but the same meaning, same implication, in her slightly dull monotone. His sister, her husband's angel and daughter's mother who reportedly couldn't cook, the decent one. She had come--
He shook his head in frustration and aimed a blast at the first thing he saw, barely stopping the car before doing so, barely bothering to check to see what it was that he had hit.
It had been a memory. Just a memory, a recording, really, found in a myriad file and replayed unconsiously in his mind, so he thought that he heard her, thought that he heard her double-edged remark of almost two decades before. A miserable, unwitting attempt at self-consolation.
He left the car four miles from his target and flew the rest of the way.
**********************************************************************
Marron took down her sign at the front of the Kame House's door, folding it halfheartedly and stuffing it in a box full of faded holiday decorations from the years before, left to be forgotten for good.
"'Welcome, Uncle Juunanagou,"' she read from her banner, unsurely, not knowing whether to be bitter or to just attempt to hope for the best. Closing the box, she chose the latter and went back upstairs to see if Master Roshi was awake. "'Welcome.'"
**********************************************************************
He found it thirty-one point six-seven-four seconds later according to his internal clock. Or what was left of it. A few small masses of logs nailed together had remained, rubble, nothing more.
So Juuhachigou had been right. The earthquake had been coming directly in his cabin's direction, and had destroyed it.
Fine. He could rebuild the thing, and rebuild it soon, if he didn't start with the old game of seeing just how long it would take if he tried to do it with next to no strength. Their strength, the human strength. An hour or so, give or take ten minutes, if he didn't try to divert himself with that distraction.
'Nails, you idiot,' he thought. 'See if there're still enough--'
"Juunanagou."
**********************************************************************