Dull eyes remained fixed on the rock where the other warrior had fallen. For once, the rocks hadn't shattered - the warrior had. The agonized scream, the sound of his bones shattering, both had reached the warrior trapped beneath the rocks. He'd watched, helpless, from where they'd dropped the cliff on him. Only his head had not been crushed - he had managed, at the last moment, to fling his arm over his head in a futile attempt to protect himself. The arm had broken.
The final warrior had fallen, and with him, the hope and fierce anger that had blazed in the watcher's eyes dimmed. They had lost.
He hurt. Were all of his bones broken? Where was Vegeta? The children? Goku moved his arm experimentally. Not broken. He began digging himself carefully free of the debris surrounding him, looking around occasionally to see if he could spot the others. The process was agonizingly slow. His arm seemed to be the only thing not broken. Every movement hurt, and levering rocks wasn't helping.
His power level was nil, an ordinary human child would have been stronger than he was, yet he somehow managed to get himself unburied. Only then did he allow himself to take stock of his injuries, and only then did the pain overwhelm him again.
The sun was setting by the time he recovered, the shock of red sun in his eyes setting them to watering. His headache had settled into a mind-numbing throb instead of the pulsating agony of his first awakening. With his good arm, he poked and prodded at himself, sharp gasps of pain accompanying the self examination.
Broken ribs, broken arm, broken leg, and one ankle. The other ankle was merely twisted and sprained, but it wouldn't take much to snap it, too. Collarbone snapped, a dislocated shoulder, naturally attached to the broken arm. And his head hurt so badly he didn't doubt something had finally broken his skull.
He was in no condition to move, but he did anyway, gritting his teeth against the pain as he smashed his shoulder back into place. He had no way to set the bones, but at least now he could…. What can I do? Where are the others? I should be able to sense them… except that I can't even sense myself! Are we all so depleted? I have to find them! Determined on his course, Goku rolled to his stomach, and then spent several very long moments trying to recover.
"Arm out. Dig in toe." Goku pushed and pulled his broken body across the rocky battlefield, chanting what to do as a mantra against the otherwise overwhelming pain. He no longer raised his head, no longer cared which direction he went. In truth, he no longer remembered why he had started moving.
He flung out his arm, his fingers gripping his latest hold. He dug in his toe. He began pulling - and realized he didn't grip rock. It was flesh - cold flesh. His whole body tensed, not wanting to know, but forcing himself to look. An arm, poking out from the rubble. He pulled himself closer, slowly digging out the shoulder. Wisps of hair… purple. Trunks had fallen here.
Goku stared at the purple strands for a long time, his mind slowly piecing in what of Trunks' battle he'd seen. The young demi-Saiyan hadn't had a chance of surviving. The blast that had knocked him to the ground had taken half his face.
Slow, fat tears fell from his eyes as he maneuvered around the rubble. This last battle had taken more than Vegeta's son. Dende and Krillen had been the first two casualties. Yamcha, then Piccolo, had followed. The Saiyans had continued to battle, taking on the impossible odds with everything they had. And one by one, they had fallen as well.
Trunks was here. Goten would be nearby - the two were rarely separated for long. Goku continued carefully around Trunks' body, downward, since it was easier. He saw the black spikes of hair before he'd made it all the way around, the blank, dead eyes, the hand outstretched towards Trunks. He laid his head down, sobbing, letting his pain flow.
At last, he began inching his way forward again. Gohan, Vegeta, and the girls - he still had to find them. There was still a chance, however slim, that they might be alive.
A chance that grew slimmer with each body he found. Gohan had been first, then the girls, so close behind him that Goku was sure his son had been trying to protect them. Their bodies had still been slightly warm - their killers had used them as after-battle spoils before leaving. They had died of their wounds while he had been searching. He cried, his spirit nearly broken. But, he still had one hope, one last person to find. Only Vegeta remained. Vegeta, who had been blasted from the sky, and followed down by seven of the enemy. He'd been flying toward him when he himself had been shot out of the sky. He continued the search.
"Vegeta?" Goku couldn't tell if the prince was alive. He'd almost missed the man, buried as he was. He lumbered his way closer, taking in the broken arm under the slab, the only thing he truly could see. That, and a lot of dried blood. "Vegeta?"
He thrust himself the last little bit, collapsing at last next to the pile of rubble that had been a cliff. "Vegeta, if you're alive, I'll get you out, I swear I will. I just… I have to rest a minute."
His breath was now coming in great gasps, his pain so great he couldn't feel anything else. As it ebbed and his breathing became steadier, he set to figuring out how to dig Vegeta out. The cliff - some large rocks, but mostly earth or small stones. Luck, there. It would be easy enough to dig in it. He hitched himself a bit closer, hollowed himself a hole that would allow him to get beneath the large rock over the prince's head and lever it off. Painstaking work, and it took forever.
"Ready, Vegeta? I'm going to get the big rock off now." Goku set his hand on the underside of the rock, gathered all of his energy, and shoved. The rock went tumbling, but the figure beneath didn't move. Goku was too spent to do any more. Exhaustion and his injuries struck him down.
Sunlight. His dazed senses slowly assimilated the fact that his injuries hadn't killed him - and his enemies hadn't made sure of his death. Alive. Wounded, badly, but alive. I'm going to destroy them. He attempted to move, failed utterly, and tried to figure out how to get revenge if he couldn't move.
"AHHHHHH!" The cry of pain right next to him startled him rather badly, but he recognized the voice. Kakarot wasn't dead. And, he must be able to move.
"K… Ka…" His voice wasn't working.
"Vegeta? You're alive? OWWW!" There was a scrabbling noise. "I'm pretty bad off, but I'll get you dug out."
"Sss… sen…" he managed.
"Sen? Senzu! Right. I had…" The voice trailed off uncertainly, and patting noises reached his ears. "Here, you take this one." Something touched his broken arm, and agony shot through him. "Here. Vegeta. Open up. Take this!"
Vegeta blinked, straightened out his arm, and looked up to see Kakarot's asinine grin. "Hadn't you better take one?" he asked, noticing the other's excessive battering.
"Well, I would, but I only had the one I'd forgotten about. I didn't want you to die while I tried to dig you out, so I had you take it." Goku's smile slipped as the pain of broken ribs made itself known again. "It's okay, I can dig like this."
"Where is the enemy?"
Goku was pawing at the rocks around his neck. "Them? I don't know. I can't sense anything."
"I suppose that means it's of no use to ask where the others are?"
The hand clearing the rocks away paused. "No." He pulled the last few rocks from Vegeta's back, and started on the rest of the pile. "I… found them."
Vegeta knew from his tone the others were dead. His free hand swept the rubble pinning him down as he proceeded to help dig himself out. "I see."
Even with the two of them working, it took some time to dig him out. He hadn't had the energy to blast himself free. "Um, Vegeta?"
"Kakarot?" He could hear the stupid question coming.
"Where are your clothes?"
Vegeta closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. "They got badly mangled in the fight."
"Oh." A long pause. "Um, do… would you want to borrow… well, my shirt's still… kinda not too badly ripped up."
Vegeta planted his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands, thanking the gods of the Saiyans that Kakarot had given him the senzu before digging him out. The wounds he'd incurred… they were something the child-like warrior didn't need to know about. "Thank you."
There was a rustling of cloth, a few hisses of pain. The blue training shirt was presented to him. "The orange is in worse shape, and you always wear blue anyway, or black…" The hesitant voice trailed off. "Vegeta?"
He took the shirt, pulled it over his head. Tall as Kakarot was, the shirt barely managed to cover enough to make him decent. The weight of it surprised him a little, he hadn't ever thought much of the weighted clothes Kakarot invariably wore. No wonder the man was so strong! "It will do."
"Good." Goku leaned against the rubble, his good arm pressed tightly against his ribs. "Glad I could help."
Vegeta noted the pain in the other's voice and finally took a good look at him. "Kakarot! Good gods, and you were digging me out?!"
"Had to be done." Goku slumped a little. "But if it's all right with you, I think I'll rest now."
"Do that." Vegeta looked around. If his boots were nearby… ah! He levitated just above the rocks, floating over to the speck of white, pulling it free. He removed a senzu, then pulled the boot on, finding the other on his way back to Kakarot. "Let me straighten you out."
"Huh?" Goku's bewilderment quickly changed to pain as Vegeta straightened the twisted, broken leg, and the arm.
"Your ribs are probably close enough to where they should be. Here." Vegeta held out the small bean.
"A senzu?" Goku swallowed, then sighed with relief. "Oh, that feels much better!"
"I'm pleased to hear it," Vegeta replied dryly. He contented himself with looking around the battlefield. It had been a pretty meadow before they had fought. Now, jagged cliffs rose to varying heights with chasms and burned ground everywhere. He heard Kakarot rise, felt the man behind him.
"What do we do now, Vegeta?" His voice was that of a lost child. "Everyone's gone."
The tall crest of his hair drooped as he hung his head, scowling at the ground. "Not everyone. We're still alive. There are still people left on this planet who need our protection."
"You… you're right." Vegeta didn't need to look to know the old fire was back in the other's eyes. "There are people who need our help."
"First, though, we must replenish our strength. The wounds are healed," he shuddered, knowing he didn't quite speak the truth, "but our strength is still gone. We have to find something to eat and a place to sleep."
"No… first, we better take care of the others." Goku gestured toward the battlefield.
There was no one. They went from town to town, village to village, and found no one left alive. Farms were decorated with the remains of the farming families. Hermit caves (and islands) were blood drenched. They'd been to the Lookout, finding nothing but bloody remains, with crude jokes written on the walls in the blood of their companions. Dende's head had been on a stick.
Nowhere did they find the warriors they had fought. In very few places were they able to find houses that hadn't been blasted apart. Fields and herds were decimated, lakes and ponds completely fouled, the fish dead and dying. Rivers were filled with decaying bodies of various animals. Goku's smiles were long gone, Vegeta's need for vengeance never higher.
But there was no one to fight, and no one to save.
They returned at last to the site of Goku's home, the tiny house destroyed beyond repair. Goku salvaged the few things that hadn't been completely destroyed. From there, they went to the great waste that had once been Capsule Corporation.
Vegeta dug carefully through the rubble, stacking each piece he removed carefully away from the rest. Bodies were scattered throughout the wreckage, he found himself recognizing servants and CC employees he hadn't realized he knew the names of. Goku buried them. One building at a time, they sorted through the remains.
Most of the bodies they found were in places where people wouldn't be if there had been any warning. Vegeta worked grimfaced and silent, knowing it was only a matter of time before he found his wife and grandchildren. The girls had been too young to fight, only four and five years old. Bulma had stayed home to watch them. No one had thought the fighters would have any trouble routing the enemy. It had been years since a enemy had come, but no one had ever fought this group and won.
The basement of the last building. Vegeta cleared it slowly, knowing this was the last place to look. The three would be here. He moved a beam, a piece of something that could have been floor or ceiling. A large bit of insulation. A tiny blue shoe that had belonged to the older granddaughter he tucked into the clothing Kakarot had found for him. He found his wife.
She had had warning, he could tell. She held one of the new weapons she had been working on, and had used it. She hadn't survived the attackers, and they had used her badly. He pulled her body gently from the rubble, carrying her to where Kakarot was burying the last person he had found.
"Veg… oh. Bulma!" Sorrow in his voice, a pain more profound than when they'd found his wife. "Here. Over here, Vegeta." He lead the way to a grave dug separately from the others. "I thought you might want her away from the others, if she hadn't made it."
"Thank you." Vegeta laid her carefully in the hole, seeing to her burial himself. Then, tears streaming unregarded down his face, he went back to find his granddaughters.