Disclaimer:
All DBZ characters belong to Akira Toriyama.
The other ones belong to me :p

YELL
" Someone has taken the idea of revenge a little bit too far "

Chapitre THREE : "Missing Father "

02h07, Capsule Corporation.

"... And it was during the diffusion of his movie, TITANIC, that the performer of the character Jack Dawson, Trunks Connor, has been witness to the murder of one of his friend after he received an anonymous phone-call...", the TV announcer's calm female voice talked, while on the screen you could see pictures showing two ambulances, the campus and Trunks, wrapped up in a blanket, and brought back to the family car, sustained by Bulma and Goten.

The announcer appeared on the screen, on the side of the usual anchorman and turned to him a so perfect white-teeth smile that it was probably an artificial one : "So, can we conclude that the movie was particularly bad ?"

The next moment, the TV screen was exploding, swept away by a bad-tempered blast.

The smoke rapidly activated the anti-fire system, and a beam of water poured out in thin water trickles in the room. Trunks had still his arm tense and a furiously mad look in his eyes.

He slowly lowered his arm as the water soaked his hair and his clothes. He raised his head to the water source, closing his eyes, hoping that that would calm him. He opened his eyes and looked at his hands...

Suddenly he realized that his hands were covered by blood ! And not only his hands, but his arms, his body, his face, ... He raised his head. The water that was dripping from the anti-fire system wasn't exactly water... He screamed.

Bulma, first alerted by the explosion sound, had run to Trunks's room. She was reaching the door when she heard him screaming. She threw her whole weight against the door and slammed it against the wall: "Trunks !! What's going on... ?"

Through the dissipating smoke, she understood the origin of the explosion. He too had watched the TV News.

She ran to him as his scream was dying in his throat and pressed him against her : "It's ok... It's OK...! I won't let anyone hurt you...!"

"Blood... ! There's blood everywhere !!", Trunks was screaming, his eyes wide-open and gazing in front of him.

She forced himself to stand up and drew him outside of his room. Outside, she noticed in the corridors raw lights that Trunks' hands were full of blood.

Alarmed, she released her son's shoulders and grasped his hands, turning them to face the palms, and she understood.

Trunks had probably mixed up water and blood, and, under pressure, he had plunged his nails in his palms, until they bleed.

She sighed with relief... For a moment, she had feared that Trunks had become suicidal.

She thought afterwards that it would have been surprising... Trunks and Gohan knew each others, they belonged to the same specie, both half-breeds...But they weren't exactly buddies. They had met very few times these latest years. Especially since Gohan married Videl. They were meeting once per year for Thanksgiving. Perhaps that they had met several more times at Goten's house, but they were no more as close as when Trunks was a kid.

Bulma understood then why Gohan had been closer to Trunks in the first years. He knew that in an alternate future, he would have been the mentor of the young Mirai-Trunks, last hope for the human kind. In this future, Gohan wanted to see if his `pupil' would need him.

And, with the passing time, his own activities had shortened his visits, and after the war against Magin Buh, he had concentrated more on Videl, while Trunks had made of Goten his best buddy.

*Friendship is one of those temporary thing of this world*, Bulma thought bitterly. *Everything down here is temporary... Even Death...*

Bulma thought then of little Pan. Videl would probably tell her 4-years-old daughter that her daddy was in a multi-day work-trip. Videl was certainly thinking that Pan was too young to understand the concept of Death, even if she could understand the concept of pain and fights... The more Bulma was thinking about it, the more she was sure that Pan would be able to understand that her daddy was temporary dead...

She thought back to Goten. The poor boy has been deeply shocked by his brother's death, but he had tried to hold out and didn't break down in front of Trunks in order not to disturb him more… He was a real friend to Trunks, Bulma thought. Videl and Chichi were totally ruined, but behind their sadness, there was hope : the dragon balls would soon recall Gohan back to life. Goku had assured to them that Gohan would soon be back.

Trunks was also aware of it, Bulma thought. Why then was he so deep under shock ?

They reached the living room and she helped Trunks to sit. She then left to search for something to drink for him. She wasn't of the type to make her kids drunk, but, knowing Trunks's reactions toward alcohol - he falls asleep - she judged that this should calm him...

"Why are you in this state, as you know he'll soon be back... ?", she asked her son, now calm, the crisis over.

Trunks was gazing the dancing flames in the chimney, not saying a word. Bulma went on : "it's not the first time that you face the death of one of us...When you were 8 and your father died, slained by Buh, you had reacted less violently than today..."

Trunks got a short breath. His look became distant, as if lost memories were coming back in the light.

Faced with his attitude, Bulma understood that he would soon talk. She continued : "Is there something between you and Gohan that I was unaware of ?"

Trunks spoke with a neutral tone, not casting a glance away from the flames : "It's true... I already faced a lotta deaths... Mine included... But it was always in the middle of a fight or a war. A such moments, even if you try not to think `bout it, you know that there's a probability that one of the fighters was killed... and, we almost expect it... But here..."

He turned to his mother a painful glare, and she realized at that moment how much he looked like Mirai-Trunks. She always thought that it was no use for them being the same person... More than twins... They rather looked like false twins : Mirai-Trunks was thinner, taller, the skin darker, more introverted, but the piercing gaze; as for Trunks, he was slightly smaller but more well-build, extroverted, slightly arrogant with his friend, but with the innocent look of any teenager who would have grown old in a world where machines didn't oblige you to hide constantly in the dooms of the world.

Nevertheless, at this very moment, she could see in the depth of Trunks' eyes the same pain, the same despair than in Mirai-Trunks's eyes. Was Gohan's death the key point in the two futures ?

Trunks continued : "here... this death doesn't make any sense... You don't expect to see one of your friends being executed while no war was announced..."

*Eight years of peace have soften the reflexes *, Bulma thought; then she got another thought watching Trunks turning his eyes away to the flames.

*When did this happen ?*, she thought. *When did we all become so numb in the face of death ? We've been too much used to count on the dragon balls... Would Trunks be the only one among us to react like a human ?*

"I understand...", she whispered to her son.

She interrupted her train of thoughts, watching the time : 02h47 a.m. !?!

"Trunks, I think you should try to sleep, now. Later we'll make a war council, and the sergeant Hayden told me he still had to ask you some more questions."

"Great !", Trunks hissed between his teeth. "So that I'll be again accused to have killed Gohan ? No thanx... !"

Bulma gasped. *That* was the problem ! Someone - and probably Hayden himself - had implied that Trunks was the murderer !

Now, she could understand the reason of the shock taken by her son : not only he had seen his best friend's brother being slaughtered before his eyes with apparently no reason, but in addition, he was suspected...

She felt a flash of rage moving through her. If Hayden had been there at this moment, he would have joined Gohan after a few seconds. She sat at Trunks' side and passed a hand in his hair. "I'll have a little discussion with that Hayden... But you've nothing to fear. Soon, Hayden will find a true clue, and don't forget that you have an alibi... "

"Non admissible", Trunks interrupted her with a neutral tone, "I have no witness to support it, except the killer himself."

Bulma pressed him against her : "Don't worry... It'll be fine..."

Trunks snorted : "Really ? The only thing that would make Hayden to suspect me a little bit less would be the killer hitting a second time while I would have a lotta persons around me to testify that it wasn't me !", he bit his lip until blood, noticing the horror of what he had just said...

Bulma passed a hand on his forehead : it was burning. She pressed Trunks' head against her shoulder. Trunks had grown old fast, and was almost an adult for long, but in time like this, she was finding back her little son...

"Where is my father ?", he asked, exhausted.

Bulma moved away some locks of wet purple hair away from his forehead : "I dunno... We didn't manage to reach him, and his cell-phone doesn't seem to work. I guess he forgot again to recharge it... I suppose that he felt that Gohan's ki has disappeared, but I wonder where he is now..."

Trunks smiled sadly : "don't lure yourself... My father would only have felt ki-disappearance if Goku had been the one killed... Or perhaps Mirai-Trunks", he added with what Bulma thought to be a touch of jealousy in his voice...

To be continued…


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Okie, I think I owe one explanation here why I named Trunks "Connor" instead of "Brief" like in most fanfics I read.

1/ Brief is Trunks' mother's name, not his father, and usually kids receive their name after their fathers (like Gohan Son, from Goku Son )

2/ Mirai-Trunks came from the future to prevent a war against cyborgs. Doesn't the whole thing remind you of the story "Terminator"? ;) Besides, if you look closely at Trunks' character design, he really looks like John Connor [Edward Furlong] in "Terminator 2", and some cyborgs in the DB and DBZ serie looked like the Terminator. Bulma, when she wanted to kill Dr Gero *before* he ever created the cyborgs, she reminds a lot of Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, when she wants to kill Miles Dyson… ;)

Akira Toriyama obviously (and never hid it) took his inspiration from movies he saw. "Terminator" is part of it. :)

So, if Mirai-Trunks was inspired of John Connor, why not naming it Trunks Connor? :)
Of course, Trunks from the present never traveled in the past, therefore he shouldn't be named "Connor", but it wouldn't be logic to have both Trunks named differently while they are *supposed* to be the same person originally ^^;

And also, I find that "Trunks Connor", it sounds cool :)))))))