Sorry this is so late. This chapter is dedicated to OmegaNY as a late Birthday dedication. Please read and Review.
Chapter 42
In Her Eyes, His Pain
June 25, 6:45 pm
Ichigo's chest hurt. Her side ached with a sharp stabbing pain with each and every breath as her broken ribs ground against each other. Her right lung had been punctured when Snow had kicked her. Even now, blood caught in her throat and made breathing even more difficult.
As she gasped for breath and tried to will the pain away she watched helplessly when Snow grabbed and then started to strangle Roshi.
'No!' Her mind screamed as she watched on frozen from action by pain, and fear, which she would never admit to having. 'He saved me again. I failed; I wasn't strong enough, or fast enough. I failed and he saved me again and now I can barely keep flying while I watch powerless to stop her from killing him.' Ichigo started coughing again, breaking her chain of thought. 'No! I can't just do nothing! I have to do something!' She thought as Roshi's face began to turn blue.
"Drop dead." Roshi managed to gasp.
"Not in your lifetime I won't." Snow laughed. "You see Monkey, you never had a chance." Snow said to Roshi before she turned to look directly into Ichigo's eyes and laughed. "What's wrong Princess? Aren't you going to help him? I would surely laugh at such a pathetic attempt."
Ichigo pulled her right arm back to start charging a ki attack, but moving her arm away from where she had pressed it into her side caused her broken ribs to flex. More blood welled in her throat and she started coughing again.
Off to her right, Naiccolo's ki spiked. "THAT'S ENOUGH!" He screamed as he flew in to hit Snow in the face.
Ichigo didn't even see the attack. Roshi jerked to the side and then the next thing she knew, Snow had made her attack.
Shlussckt! She speared her left hand right through the center of Naiccolo's chest. Purple blood escaped the Namekian warriors' mouths, as the fusion suddenly broke apart.
Nail fell away gasping for air, leaving Piccolo cleanly speared on her arm. Piccolo struggled to get off of her arm as she laughed. She turned Roshi around so he could watch and then shot her eye lasers directly into Piccolo's head.
Ichigo watched stunned as Piccolo's head exploded in a shower of purple blood. Snow laughed even more maniacally and grabbed apiece purple gray flesh that had once been part of Piccolo's brain and greedily sucked it into her mouth.
"Don't you see? You never had a chance!" Snow laughed as she licked the purple blood off of her face. Roshi struggled ineffectively as she once again tightened her grip on his neck.
Then suddenly, he stopped struggling. Ichigo had tried to pay closer attention to not only her own ki, but to other's as well after her "Stopper Beam" had almost killed her. She was now paying particularly close attention to Roshi's ki.
Dende and Goshu had told her that ki was formed by the connections between the Soul, the Mind, and the Body. In a moment of time, Roshi stopped struggling. In that moment of time his ki dropped away. In that moment in time Ichigo felt the flickering candle's flame of hope she had kept throughout her journey snuff itself out. In that moment of time in which time seemed to slow and stretch on into infinity Ichigo felt a part of Roshi's soul collapse in on itself. Like a star with all of its fire snuffed out it faltered and caved in on itself.
Then, when she had almost let her hope slip away like a breeze through her fingers, the next moment of time slammed into her with the force of a star going nova.
In that next infinitesimally short yet monumentally tangible moment in time Ichigo felt something that her mind could not grasp or explain yet was unquestionably real. It was like the crack of a shattering crystal, or the flash of light from a camera. It happened so fast she almost didn't catch the moment of change yet, she would never be able to forget what happened.
In that moment of time, Roshi's soul could collapse no further. Like a nuclear bomb at critical mass it released the energy it could no longer contain.
Roshi's back arched suddenly as he gasped for air in Snow's grip.
Snow stopped laughing when Roshi began to scream.
Ichigo felt Roshi's ki change but could not understand what was happening. He screamed in Snow's grip and his body tensed as his ki built up like a fire consuming everything in its wake.
As Ichigo watched breathless and confused, Roshi's aura built and swirled around Snow's arm. It flickered and flashed and pulsed an ever-brightening white light.
The ground began to shake as sweat appeared on Snow's face. She reached over and tried to wring Roshi's neck with both hands, but he screamed on unfaltering.
The storm clouds that circled above churned, and soon the sky flashed with lightning as thunder shook the air. The wind picked up from a slight breeze to a howling gale.
Ichigo's confusion did not ebb. If anything the onslaught of nature that now befell the battle only added to her befuddlement. 'Where is he getting this kind of energy?' She thought as she recalled her first fight with him. 'I thought I had him beaten, but I only managed to wake the power he hides within. Why is it that he can have such power but I do not? Where does he get it from? Why can I never match him?' Her mind plagued her as her own failure to stop Snow tore at her conscience.
A sudden yellow sphere of ki flashed outward from Roshi and Snow was thrown away from him. The ki ball washed over Ichigo and knocked her away like a feather caught in jet wash.
By the time Ichigo regained control over her flight, Roshi's aura was flashing yellow. It reverberated a growing staccato. Even from the far away distance she had been thrown, she could feel the power of that aura and the pressure of the sound it gave on her skin.
Roshi's scream grew louder and the flair of yellow ki grew with it. Yellow energy swirled around and pushed the dark storming clouds aside. A bright yellow shaft of sunlight fell over Roshi and blinded Ichigo for a moment.
'Damn! Where is he finding this power?' Ichigo wondered. She was awed and envious, thankful and bitter. Her mind sought understanding as Roshi's power continued to rise. As his power grew and her understanding fell something tugged at her soul and she felt something that was familiar and right, while also unknown and frightening.
In the next, she saw Roshi bathed in the light of the sun, which had been hidden by the clouds of combat for the past hour. Bathed in that majestic halo of sunlight and ki aura, Roshi's hair flickered then flashed gold.
Ichigo's eyes bulged in shock at what she saw Roshi's hair glow with white-gold light. Finally her mind found purchase on what was happening.
'He's become a Super Saiyan!' She realized with a gasp. 'This is incredible!' Part of her was overjoyed at the sight of what Roshi had become. The rest of her remembered Slip's painful words. She also felt the shame of having to be saved by Roshi on numerous occasions and the deep hollow sense of failure.
Ichigo felt her anger brewing and her sense of injustice at the whole situation grow. 'No, it is not right that he should be the one to clean up my mess. It is not right that I should be denied the power. But it is also not right for me to blame anyone but myself. I don't believe Slip's words. I will not fail again. I will become a Super Saiyan. It is right that Roshi stops Snow here at his home. On Saiya, I will not let him carry my load.'
* * *
The ground was shaking again. Mariah cradled John's unconscious form closer, wishing he would wake. 'Why won't it stop? Why? Why wasn't Roshi here to save us?' She thought in the darkness as the ground groaned and the earth shook.
* * *
Caught between stunned disbelief, awed hope, and bitter anger, Ichigo's ribs no longer hurt nearly so much. She watched on in a daze, aware only of the pains of the mind and soul. The pains of the flesh were quickly forgotten. 'He really is a Super Saiyan.'
Snow laughed, breaking Ichigo's chain of thought. "Impressive light show boy. First blue then red and now yellow. So when this proves just as useless as the rest are you going to try green?" Snow teased from where she was floating across the wind swept battlefield from Ichigo.
For what seemed like forever, Roshi did not move. He stood in the air like a statue. The only movement was that of his hair and his torn and tattered gi, which fluttered in the wind of his aura. Then, Roshi slowly turned in the air to face Snow.
"You kill with no regard for the lives which you destroy. You have no compassion for your victims, and you revel in their pain. Like Frieza before you, you have laid waste to those who stand in your way. Like Frieza before you, you have destroyed far too many lives. Like Frieza before you, your reign of terror must end!" Roshi spat at Snow.
Snow kept laughing. "Give it up boy you are no match for me."
"That right?" Roshi asked, "Then why are you calling me boy now rather than Monkey? You're afraid and you have a very good reason to be."
Snow obviously ran out of patience because she attacked. She swan dived at Roshi with both of her arms out and as far back as they would go. Her hands crackled with black and purple ki.
The energy Ichigo sensed was enormous. The attack was devastatingly powerful, and Ichigo's mouth dropped open, as Roshi didn't move. Snow's hands swept right through him. Moments later the double image Roshi had left without Ichigo even sensing him move, faded away.
"I'm over here Lizard Brain!" Roshi called out as he suddenly reappeared behind Snow and double handed hammer punched her in the back of the head.
"WHY YOU!" Snow screamed as she bounced off the ground and then sent a massive red beam of ki up at Roshi.
Roshi just stood in the air and knocked the blast away like it was nothing.
Ichigo marveled envious, 'this isn't possible! That blast was bigger than the one that almost killed him just a few minutes ago!'
"Wha... What are you?! How can you just knock my attack away as though it were nothing?" Snow screamed as she flew up at Roshi again.
"I am the stuff of your nightmares you stupid bitch! I am a Super Saiyan. I am the Universe's way of testing what happens when an unstoppable object meets an irresistible force. I am the retribution that your crimes call out for. I am your death!" Roshi called down to Snow before diving down to kick her in the face.
Snow cart wheeled through the air and almost hit Ichigo.
Roshi's eyes caught Ichigo's for the first time since his transformation and Ichigo saw that they had turned a glowing green with a hint of blue. The sight was also unnerving. Roshi's eyes held something unmistakable in them. Something Ichigo had never seen in his eyes before. Ichigo looked into the eyes of boiling festering uncontrolled hate.
"Get the hell out of here Ichigo! You're useless here and just in the way!" He yelled out at her.
Ichigo's eyes widened as her mouth dropped. In his tone and in his face she didn't see the Roshi she knew, she saw Banana and all the pain he had caused. Ichigo's anger spiked instantly. "Why you arrogant bastard! I have never been useless!" She yelled too loudly for her lungs to take. Blood gurgled in her throat and she broke down into a fit of coughs.
Her senses suddenly screamed at her as she felt Snow launch several ki blasts in her direction. She knew she was too slow to stop them and had only started to turn when Roshi suddenly disappeared and then was almost instantly between her and the incoming ki blasts.
He knocked them away with what seemed like little effort and then turned to face Ichigo. "I can't waste my time protecting you. You are only in the way now. Get the heck out of here!"
"How dare you! After everything you said about teamwork and just everything HOW DARE you say I'M in the way!" Ichigo yelled at him. Specks of her blood now splattered his face, but he didn't seem to notice. She pounded her left fist into his chest, but did not even budge him. Her mind flashed to when Banana had mocked her calling Roshi her protector. It played over all the words Roshi had ever said and finally came to rest on his spite filled words from the previous Monday. "I don't need your protection! I don't need you! I hate you!"
Roshi pulled his hand back, and Ichigo was certain he was going to hit her. His hand flew forward and by reflex, Ichigo closed her eyes waiting for the inevitable. It was only in that last moment that she felt Snow's presence. She felt Roshi grab her left shoulder and throw her quite forcefully out of the way.
Ichigo opened her eyes. Roshi stood grasping Snow's left arm in his right and then the right with his left. "Shove off you cold blooded freak, I was talking here!"
Ichigo floated stunned and looked Snow in the eyes. She saw her eyes flash and before she could even move, Roshi had lunged and blocked the Eye Lasers with his own head. He then forcefully flung Snow into the ground.
"I told you to SHOVE OFF!" He yelled at Snow. "And I told you to go find Dende!" He yelled at Ichigo with enough force to actually knock her back a few cm in the air.
Goshu appeared beside her and gripped her left shoulder. "Please Ichigo, be rational, if he has to worry about hurting us, then his mind will not be focused on fighting Snow. Please, come with me. We can do nothing further here."
Roshi turned and glared balefully at her. "Don't let your stupid pride get you killed! Look at you, you are almost dead as it is. Go find Dende!"
Ichigo glared right back into his eyes. "And if I don't?"
Roshi's ki flared and the pure heat of his aura forced her back. His face contorted in rage and he looked her dead in the eyes. "I have time for this. Leave. If you do something stupid and get yourself killed, I swear I will find a way to bring you back just so I can kill you myself!"
"Why you miserable!!!" Ichigo was cut off by several ki blasts Snow had fired off while the three Saiyans had been distracted.
Roshi danced out of the way of the blasts before firing off a massive one handed yellow blast back at Snow. He then turned and glared daggers at Ichigo. "Last chance, get the hell out of my way."
"You will NOT..." Ichigo never got to finish her sentence. She didn't even have time to see the fog of darkness that enveloped her senses. All she saw was the explosion of stars after Roshi hit her in the chin.
* * *
Ichigo came to with a dull ache behind her eyes. She brought her left hand up and rubbed her face as she tried to recall what had been going on before she had been knocked out. "Owwwh what hit me?" She asked as she started to sit up.
Cool hands gently pushed down on her shoulders, "Dear child, relax and lay still, I am not done healing you yet." Dende said calmly.
His words were soothing and his tone calming, but his words bit.
"For the last time, I am not a child!" She practically growled at him as she lowered her hand and glared.
"Relax Ichigo, Dende is like five hundred and some odd years old. If you haven't caught it he calls Goshu a child occasionally too." Boxers said from where he was standing behind a large boulder watching the battle.
"Just because he's old doesn't give him the right to disrespect me. I've asked not to be called that before." Ichigo stated tersely.
Yoshi rolled over from where he had been laying. While Dende had been able to heal the wound, he had not been able to restore Yoshi's lost arm. The one armed man looked at her, shook his head and scoffed. "You are amazingly petty to be upset at such a harmless thing in a time such as this."
Ichigo's mouth clicked shut as the rebuke hit home. A bright flash of light lit the sky to the west. Ichigo had no idea how long she had been out. The ground suddenly shuttered violently. It was obvious that Roshi still battled Snow, and a chill came over Ichigo as she realized both seemed to be fighting at equal power.
She looked at Yoshi and frowned. She felt responsible for what had happened, and the guilt over maiming a capable warrior weighed heavy on her heart. "You are right to rebuke me. My words were misplaced."
"There, you may get up now. You are healed, but remember I cannot restore your lost energy so take caution." Dende said quietly.
Ichigo sat up and immediately pulled her loose hair away from her face and grumbled. The wind was blowing too fiercely to allow her to easily braid it back into place. After about a minute of fussing with it, Ichigo gave up and let her wild hair just spike up and fall where it wanted.
The wind blew it over her face again.
"Would anyone happen to have something I could tie this unruly mass back with?" Ichigo asked from beneath the enveloping mass of her hair.
Dende laughed kindly, "you have brought a small bit of laughter to this battle, and while not your intention it has lifted our spirits greatly. I believe you would like more than just a ribbon for your hair though correct?" He asked before Ichigo felt an odd tickling sensation and found herself wearing a gray-blue version of a Namekian gi complete with white shoulder pads and cape.
A blue ribbon was also resting in her hands. Ichigo quickly tied her hair into a semi-controlled ponytail. "Thank you."
Dende just shook his head. "Even after watching people on this planet interact for over five hundred years I do not fully understand your sexes. I do however know that generally women do not like being nearly unclothed while around men." He said neutrally before walking away to look for other wounded.
Ichigo blushed furiously at his comment, realizing just how little of her gi and body suit had been left.
The ground shook again. In the distance an explosion rumbled menacingly.
"Where is Tee? Did Snow kill him?" She asked haltingly. Yoshi's injuries gnawed on her conscience and he was alive, while an honorable death was not frowned on for a warrior, she hated to think that Tee might have been killed.
Boxers grimaced and looked down. "I don't know. I... I don't know what happened to him. Snow hit us, and our fusion failed. I think I passed out. I... I can't sense him anymore." He finished with tears welling in his eyes while he shook his fists in frustration.
"That doesn't mean anything. With all the ki Roshi and Snow are bleeding off just breathing right now it is distracting. Just because you can't sense him does not mean he is dead." Goshu said firmly from where he stood beside Boxers.
Ichigo walked up to stand on Boxers's left. She looked at the battlefield and opened her senses to it as well. Goshu was right. Ki was bleeding off of the two fighting warriors like radiation from a sun. It mixed and churned like a choppy sea. Eddies and whirlpools of it spun through the air creating small eruptions of energy, which played over the battlefield while the two lit the air with their major attacks.
It was an impressive thing to witness and it called to Ichigo's senses. Her deep desire to win her battles on her own welled up in her mind. 'I should be the one fighting Snow. It was my duty. It was my fate that caused these events. I should not be standing here denied my right.' Ichigo thought bitterly.
In the air above them, Roshi and Snow traded blow for blow. Both were about equal power with Roshi having a slight lead in both speed and strength.
Ichigo ground her teeth. 'Petty, I am being petty. I am not going to just stand here and watch lamenting about fate. Fate is not something that is given; it is something that is earned. Roshi has earned the power he now possesses. I can only choose to work harder until I too achieve such ends.' Ichigo thought as she decided to watch what she could see, and learn all that could.
Snow screamed a string of curses at Roshi and proceeded to fire off an equally ineffective string of ki blasts.
'She looks almost as flustered as I feel,' Ichigo thought allowing herself a bit of a smile. Her small smile blossomed into a full-blown grin of pride as she watched Roshi send Snow crashing into the ground after being hit by a Ki Punch.
The ground exploded outward in a wave of rock and lava as Snow burst from her hole. Lightning crackled and sizzled around her as her brilliant red-black aura blazed.
"Um, is it just me, or did she just get stronger?" Boxers asked sounding unsure of himself.
Nail frowned. "She did. I believe from the accounts from Namek, Frieza didn't actually reach his maximum until after Goku was already a Super Saiyan."
Dende sighed. "Goku told Piccolo the story of what happened on Namek many years after the fight. From what he said, once Frieza reached his maximum he only fought for a few minutes before he started to weaken to the point where he became desperate and blew up the planet."
"Snow is continuing to grow stronger. Roshi has lost the edge he once had in this fight. If what you say is true, however, he only needs to hang on a few more minutes." Ichigo replied.
Boxers scoffed. "Yeah, but in this battle those minutes are going to seem like centuries. Centuries where all we can do is watch and hope."
"Who said anything about just watching?" Ichigo replied. "Look, I'm not one to do nothing. I've never really liked Tee much. I think his purple hair is the main reason. It is... just freakish. Anyhow, as I was saying I never really liked the purple haired freak, but I'm also not going to just stand here not knowing if he is dead or alive. I'm going to go look for him."
Boxers's jaw dropped partially open before he caught himself. "Right, I should have done that already."
Ichigo nodded, "so, where about were you fighting when you got knocked out that would probably be a good place to start looking.
Boxers looked sheepishly at the battle site and then pointed off to the left of where Roshi and Snow were currently fighting. I think I was over there."
"Fine," Ichigo said as she ducked allowing several boulders an errant ki blast had knocked up to fly past her head, "I am going over there to start looking."
Ichigo took to the air in search of Tee, but she kept watch on the fight as well. She had no intentions of getting too close to it.
Ichigo cringed when an ugly purple pulsating blast of ki hit Roshi. He was sent cartwheeling into the sky where he was hit by several more blasts.
'Roshi's power level is dropping. This is not good.' Ichigo thought as she scanned the rocky ground for any sign of Tee.
* * *
Teddy's stomach did another flip as the ground shook again. 'Who would have thought that their fighting would shake the whole planet. I don't even want to think about the structural damage this is doing.'
The jury-rigged emergency power was holding steady, but that didn't alleviate any of Teddy's worries. If anything, it made them worse as she was getting damage assessment information from all over the world in faster than she could read them.
Then the GKSS started wailing again. Teddy fought down the rising bile and took a drink of water before she turned to look at the dire information she knew her screen would have.
Changeling, Forth stage, Current = 32,000,500.
Roshi, Super Saiyan, Current = 29,900,000, Max Super Saiyan = 30,500,000, Max
Normal = Unknown.
"Oh Dende no!" Teddy gasped, "Roshi made it to Super Saiyan, but if the Changeling is not at its maximum... I don't want to think about if the Changeling isn't at its maximum!"
Teddy emptied yet another antacid bottle.
* * *
Ichigo turned over yet another burned and beaten body. She sensed life, but wasn't sure if it was Tee. It didn't matter, whoever or whatever it was, but it didn't deserve to die on a beaten and broken battlefield.
Before the fight, the land Ichigo stood on had been fertile farmland with dark black dirt. The fresh earthy sent of the flowers and fruits of the plains had greeted them. Now, the land was pock marked with devastation. The heat of not only the ki blasts but also the lava those blasts had released from the bowels of the planet had burned off all plant life. The once fertile soil had been beaten until it formed rocks hard as concrete. In many places the heat had turned that rock into glass.
No longer did the battlefield smell of grass and earth. Now it stank of brimstone, burned flesh, and decay.
Ichigo finally reached the life she had sensed, but it wasn't Tee. She pulled a broken body off of the woman and pulled her over so that she lay on her back. The woman's brown eyes were glazed over. Blood was matted all over her uniform. Ichigo saw the gapping wound in her side and knew the woman was soon to pass on. The sight of such a waste of life churned Ichigo's stomach.
The woman's eyes focused on Ichigo for a moment, then they fogged as she took her last ragged breath.
"Damn it all!" Ichigo yelled into the wind as she once again took to the air. She looked at the devastation that surrounded her and sought desperately to sense Tee's ki.
Not overly far away from her Roshi continued to fight.
"Masenko!" Roshi yelled moments before he released a glowing yellow ball of ki.
Snow tried to blow it up with a ki blast, but it relentlessly moved forward. It slammed into her and drove her into the ground. Dirt rock, and bodies were blasted into the air in the wake of the explosion and the earth shook.
Ichigo grimaced and shook her head absent-mindedly. The fight was impressive in both the destruction and the seemingly apparent disregard for the actual amount of damage being done.
'This battle is wrong. Roshi is different. In our first fight, he threw himself into a huge ki blast to save innocent lives. Yet now he fights directly over the dead and dieing.'
Ichigo focused on Roshi for a moment and sensed the change in his ki. "He is different, and it is more than just a change in power. His ki feels odd, altered." She said to herself perplexed.
Then a memory from her past hit her.
* * *
In the courtyard of the ruined palace of the former capitol at Orchard Point there stood a golden statue. It was a statue of the Super Saiyan.
Orchard Point had been the Summer Palace before the Civil War. In the last major battle of that war those who were following the Vegeta family laid siege to the Palace. Over 500,000 warriors met their death in that battle.
After the war, the King turned the former Capitol into a monument and memorial. It would serve forever as a reminder to those who came after of the carnage of that war. It also became a cemetery for the fallen.
It was where her mother had been buried.
Ichigo was five when her mother died. Even now she did not like thinking about the days surrounding her mother's death, but one memory stood out.
After her mother had been buried and the guards had left, only her father and Ichigo remained within the burrows of the point. Her father had whispered some last words to her mother's grave and then stood before turning and kneeling in front of Ichigo.
"Dry your tears, my child. Your mother would not want you to cry now." He said softly before wiping the tears off of Ichigo's cheeks.
"Can you be strong now Ichigo? Don't cry now, but remember the good memories. Hold on to them now and don't fret at the bad."
Ichigo wiped her eyes again and looked at her father. He looked sad, yet hopeful. He was all she had left and she would have done anything to make him happy right then.
She forced a smile and looked up at her father. "I be strong."
Her father smiled and shook his head. "Yes, you will, you will be strong." He replied, accenting the word will, to remind her she had forgotten it.
He then led her out a different way from how they had entered the cemetery. He led her in to a large courtyard that overlooked the black cliffs Orchard Point had been famous for.
Once there, they stopped in front of a large golden statue of an ancient Saiyan warrior. Her father bowed before it and said a few mumbled words.
"Father, what are you saying?"
Her father looked over at her and smiled sadly. "I am paying my respects. This is the statue of the Super Saiyan. Long before the civil war that destroyed this place, he lived and saved all of our people. It is said that he will return if we are ever threatened in such a manner again." He sighed. "I do not truly believe such stories, but I still honor his memory."
Ichigo looked up at the statue for a long while. "Why's he so sad? I thought he was spossed ta be a really great warrior."
"Why is, and Sup-Pos-ed to be, Ichigo, you must not slur your speech." He said while he ruffled her hair.
"DADDY!! You did not tell me why he looks so sad!"
"He is sad because his is a painful story, one that I do not wish to tell today."
Ichigo knew when to back down, but there were few things that her father wouldn't tell her when she asked, so her curiosity was peeked.
She would later learn why her father did not wish to tell the story of the Super Saiyan on that particular day. The Super Saiyan's story was one of loss and it cut too closely to the heart so soon after Ichigo's mother had died.
The Super Saiyan had been King. During his reign, the Merzaid a race of beings who called themselves "The Righteous" had attacked Saiya. The Merzaid were probably equal in power with the Changelings and easily as cruel.
During the attack the Merzaid had rounded up many people to be used as slaves or just to be taken elsewhere. From what little was still remembered from that day, apparently the King had destroyed a transport that had been carrying his wife and son, killing them in the process.
When he realized what he had done, he went mad with rage. Whether he was a Super Saiyan before that happened or not had been forgotten by history, but his rage was never forgotten.
Few but Ichigo's family actually knew or cared for the whole story. It was so much simpler for people to remember his legendary power, but not the problems that power created. The King went on to destroy not only all the Merzaid on Saiya, but also their home world and any world he found them on. He single-handedly killed an entire race and that legacy had kept many would be conquerors away from Saiya for millennia.
However, even with his rage spent, the King never found peace. He never found joy again. Ichigo remembered distinctly what her father had said to her the day he finally told her the story.
"He had found the power to overwhelm and vanquish his foes, but he could never regain what he had lost. He died a broken, bitter and lonely man. Ultimate power comes with a price, and the more power one wields, the more they have to pay. It is why our family is still the Royal family. Few have our abilities my daughter, and even fewer have what it takes to lead responsibly."
Ichigo hadn't said anything, so her father continued. "The story is not all sad though, when the King who had become a Super Saiyan died, he only remaining child his daughter, your namesake, took the throne. As Queen, she restored much that had been lost during her father's reign. When it comes time for you to take up the throne, my daughter, never forget that you, like your namesake before you are capable of great things. Never let anyone define you or your role."
* * *
An explosion ripped Ichigo out of her thoughts. The pressure wave swept over her and knocked her to her knees on the glassy broken ground. Ichigo managed to get back up and look about for signs of what had happened.
Roshi had been knocked into a sheet of cooling lava. He was flat on his back and did not seem to be moving. The surface of the still hot rock cracked like ice. Red-hot molten rock seeped through the cracks and threatened to consume him.
Snow laughed mockingly from above and came to hover directly above him. "So, even your lauded Super Saiyan is no match for me. You monkeys are all pathetic."
Had Ichigo not been able to sense ki she would have been surprised, but since she could, she knew Roshi had not lost any energy and had only duped Snow.
Ki flared out of Roshi's hands and forced him upwards and at Snow like a rocket blasting from a launch pad. Snow was caught suspended in air like a manikin with its strings cut. She was only starting to react when Roshi flipped his hands around and fired off the largest Kamehameha Ichigo had ever seen.
Snow was sent hurtling towards space. However, she quickly righted herself and fired an even larger pink beam back at Roshi.
"Masenko!!!" Roshi screamed as he threw a huge yellow ki ball out to deflect the pink beam.
Snow took advantage of the situation by swinging around and slamming into Roshi's side. He skipped like a stone over smooth water right into a clay hillside several km away.
Ichigo watched in shock as a sudden huge yellow burst of ki simply obliterated the hillside and everything for hundreds of meters around it.
Ichigo chewed her tongue and tried to figure out what she could do. Her memory moved to a conversation she had had with Roshi right after their first fight.
* * *
"How powerful are you when you are going all out?" She had asked.
Roshi got a far away look in his eyes. "I don't know. With the exception of that split second when I lost it, I have never gone all out before. I can't afford to."
"Why not? I don't understand."
Roshi looked her in the eyes. "We fought for a little over a half of an hour and our fight created a huge thunderstorm. We altered nature by our actions. I can't afford to be so reckless with my abilities. I could never live with myself if I lost control and people got hurt needlessly because of my actions."
* * *
"Roshi." She whispered to herself. "You have gained enormous power. I only fear to wonder what it has cost your soul." She said to herself as she looked at all the ragged bodies and devastated earth the battle had caused.
Not knowing what else to do, Ichigo flew back to where Goshu and the others were. "Goshu, can you feel the change in Roshi's ki?" She asked as she landed.
Goshu nodded slowly. "Yes, I'm starting to worry. I don't know what his ki should feel like, but it reminds me terribly of the times where he is acting more on instinct then thought."
'Like when he is enraged.' Ichigo thought to herself. 'Ki is created by the connections between mind, body, and soul. Roshi told me that Super Saiyans resulted not from desire, but from necessity. When Roshi went Super Saiyan it felt like a part of his soul had collapsed.'
"Could the Super Saiyan just be how our minds and bodies reply to a wounded soul?" She suddenly blurted to herself.
"What was that?" Goshu asked sounding alarmed.
Ichigo looked up to see Snow drive Roshi back with a series of blows. Then, Roshi's aura flared again and he counter attacked.
His ki was shifting further and further from what could be considered normal.
Ichigo couldn't take it any longer. She took off and flew up towards were Roshi was knocking Snow back.
Snow fell to the ground and Roshi started to charge a very large Kamehameha.
'No! I'm not letting him lose himself in my battle!' Ichigo thought to herself as she pushed herself to greater speed.
"Stop Roshi! You are not like Snow! You are good, and kind and valiant and you are not like this! I might react like you are, but you are not even like me. Do not fight her on her terms. You will only lose in the end!" Ichigo shouted up at him when she got between himself and Snow who was still on the ground.
Roshi glared at her. Emotions rolled along his face as he fought his internal demons. "I need to kill her. Get out of my way."
Ichigo blanched, she wanted, needed Snow to die, but Roshi didn't even realize the danger he posed. "No, not like this. Not with the whole of the Earth in the way if you should miss. You must not be willing to make that sacrifice. You are not like this. You should not be willing to kill at all costs." Ichigo said while thinking, 'what am I saying? How can I be saying this?'
A look of surprise bloomed on Roshi's face as though he suddenly realized what he had about done. "Ichigo, I... you..." he said as his expression softened.
Ichigo was about to reply when a cold clawed hand grabbed her by the back of the neck. "My my, now this is interesting. You seem to be pleading for my life! I would keep you around just out of curiosity, but I find your entire race loathsome!" Snow said as her hand tightened on Ichigo's neck, and her claws pierced her skin.
Roshi flinched. Ichigo didn't see what happened. It happened to fast for her to catch. One moment she was caught in Snow's grip. The next she was falling towards the ground.
She crashed head first into the rocky ground and flopped onto her back. The world swam and her vision blurred for a bit.
Ichigo shakily got to her feet. She felt light headed. Something warm and wet was trickling down her right side. It flowed over her shoulder and seeped to below her collarbone to her sternum and then down over her stomach. Ichigo looked down to see the blood she knew would be there slowly staining her gi brownish red.
She brought her hand up to her neck and then back away. Blood coated her fingers. Snow had punctured one of her the veins or arteries in her neck. It wasn't a fast loss of blood, but it was deadly.
Ichigo remembered the Senzu bean that she had hidden in the left cup of her bra. She realized that it would save her. Then she saw Tee.
Tee was lying on his back across a flowing river of lava from her. His legs had been crushed by a boulder and on arm had been burned by the lava. He was horribly injured, but he was alive.
Above her, Roshi and Snow plummeted towards the ground holding each other locked in a death grip. The shockwave produced when the spiraling mass of energy and flesh slammed into the ground, threw debris up for nearly a kilometer.
The ground shifted beneath Ichigo's feet as new cracks formed in the rocky earth. Fresh lava bubbled out of these cracks and was rapidly beginning to cover the earth in the region in its all-consuming swath of destruction.
Ichigo scanned the area. Above her Roshi and Snow continued to trade blows. The percussion of those blows rocked the ground and helped to break the shifting earth asunder. To her left was the flowing river of lava released early in the fight by one of Snow's beams. To her right was the caldera and growing lake of molten rock formed since Roshi turned Super Saiyan.
Ichigo looked back at Tee's broken form. 'I can't go get help, I'll never make it in my state, and I can't afford to move you in the state that you are in.' She shook her head. 'Which leaves me only one choice.'
Ichigo was not for the first time grateful for the Namekian gi she now wore as she quickly untied her obi and reached up the blouse portion of the gi to retrieve the senzu bean she had carried with her since the fight with Banana.
Much to her chagrin, the small amount of remaining elastic fabric in the strap of her bra broke the moment she touched it.
To make matters worse, at some point during her fight with Snow, the senzu bean had been shattered. It was now nothing more then a mass of sand sized pieces which had in turned soaked up her sweat, and some of her blood, and were now stuck to her skin.
A sudden geyser of lava caused her to stop thinking of how ridiculous she looked at the moment digging in her shirt. She quickly pulled as many of the pieces as she could feel off of herself and into the palm of her hand.
'Well I hope this works.' She thought as she carefully pushed the bean pieces into Tee's mouth. A small piece, about the size of a grain of sand stuck to her fingertip. She looked at it and then after forcing Tee to swallow the pieces she had given him, chewed on that last piece.
As Tee stirred, Ichigo hoped that small piece would be enough to slow the bleeding just a little longer.
"Ichigo?" Tee said as he suddenly woke. "Ichigo!"
"Get me to Dende. I need..." Ichigo said as she finally passed out from blood loss.
* * *
High above them Roshi waited for Snow's next attack. He looked down and saw Tee scoop Ichigo up and race towards where he could feel Dende, his father, Yoshi, Nail, and Boxer's waited.
'Hurry Tee, get her to Dende. Then get the hell out of here. I have a Changeling to kill. I almost went to far once, I can't let that happen again, I can't let you guys get hurt because of me.'
* * *
Well there is chapter 42. Please Review. I expect this to be a rather controversial chapter. So please give me your opinions as they are very important to me.
I would also like to invite you to something Omega NY set up. It has a few neat polls and a few pics and some other neat stuff. Check it out!
Anyway, thanks for reading.
The Smooster :)
