Hello.
My name is Trunks, the son of Vegeta.
Welcome to my life.
Even now, I cannot get their faces out of my mind. So many faces; faces of friends, of family. Of strangers. Of the enemy; my enemy, earth's enemy.
The androids. Sleek, faultless killing machines: a deadly beauty, such a young girl but stronger than the greatest of all Saiyans, Goku; and her brother, the young teenage warrior of unmatched strength.
Ironically, we were all young. The androids, the Z warriors, my father. Me. My mother. She isn't really as old as she seems. Her age comes not from the passing of time but from the passing of friends, the loss of those so dear.
But they are gone now; they have been destroyed. I finally achieved what so many fought for, what I spent my entire life training to do. They will never wreak havoc on my world ever again.
All that remains is for us to rebuild. To try to repair what was destroyed and heal what wounds we can. Some injuries, however, will never fully mend. I, and others like me, will bear the scars of our burdens and losses for the rest of our lives. Scars like that don't heal. Scars of flesh and bone will fade eventually, but scars on heart and soul...
It takes something more than time and medicine to erase them.
It takes hard work. Wear yourself out by working, by using your bare hands to pick up the broken shards of homes and cities, then use those same hands to erect them again. Days will pass, and you will think you have accomplished nothing, you will look at your bruised, dirty hands and wonder why you're still trying. And then you'll hear a child laugh, and you'll look up and see all the new houses standing in your wake, all the new families with smiling faces. You'll know you put those smiles there, and a little of the pain inside will ease.
And it also takes talk. A lot of it. Talking is something I've never personally been great at, but it is a remarkable sort of balm for troubled times. There will be fights and squabbles, plenty of them, among neighbors trying to rebuild. You'll argue, too, over the stupidest little things. But there will always be someone or something there to remind you not to be petty, and you and your adversary will start working again, side by side, harder and better than you did before. Soon enough you'll learn how to work things out by talking calmly first, not jumping immediately to taking offense. The more you talk things out, the smoother life will get. And you'll make new friends that way. They'll never replace the old, but they will help you to find a new way to live.
Most of all, it takes love. Without my mother, I never, ever would have made it through. She loved me enough to keep me indoors as a young child, not to let me play out on the streets like I wanted, unaware as I was of the danger. She loved me enough to hold me close when I was scared, sad, angry at all that was happening around us. She loved me enough to make my life as normal as she could--"Trunks, clean up your room!"..."Trunks, take out the trash, please"...as our world was crashing down around us. And she loved me enough to send me to another time so I could be a hero for our own. How could she know what she would be doing when she told me she wanted me to bring Goku that warning? Yet she gave me some of the hardest, and some of the happiest, days of my life, and offered me the chance to save my world, though not in the way she thought she did.
Her love made my life bearable. She was the key to everything, both the beginning and the end of my greatest adventure. She set it in motion, and was there at the finish line to welcome me back. Without her, the pain of my wounds, my losses, would have overcome me.
But I've overcome, instead.
My name is Trunks. Welcome to my world.
It will always be full of peace.
My name is Trunks, the son of Vegeta.
Welcome to my life.
Even now, I cannot get their faces out of my mind. So many faces; faces of friends, of family. Of strangers. Of the enemy; my enemy, earth's enemy.
The androids. Sleek, faultless killing machines: a deadly beauty, such a young girl but stronger than the greatest of all Saiyans, Goku; and her brother, the young teenage warrior of unmatched strength.
Ironically, we were all young. The androids, the Z warriors, my father. Me. My mother. She isn't really as old as she seems. Her age comes not from the passing of time but from the passing of friends, the loss of those so dear.
But they are gone now; they have been destroyed. I finally achieved what so many fought for, what I spent my entire life training to do. They will never wreak havoc on my world ever again.
All that remains is for us to rebuild. To try to repair what was destroyed and heal what wounds we can. Some injuries, however, will never fully mend. I, and others like me, will bear the scars of our burdens and losses for the rest of our lives. Scars like that don't heal. Scars of flesh and bone will fade eventually, but scars on heart and soul...
It takes something more than time and medicine to erase them.
It takes hard work. Wear yourself out by working, by using your bare hands to pick up the broken shards of homes and cities, then use those same hands to erect them again. Days will pass, and you will think you have accomplished nothing, you will look at your bruised, dirty hands and wonder why you're still trying. And then you'll hear a child laugh, and you'll look up and see all the new houses standing in your wake, all the new families with smiling faces. You'll know you put those smiles there, and a little of the pain inside will ease.
And it also takes talk. A lot of it. Talking is something I've never personally been great at, but it is a remarkable sort of balm for troubled times. There will be fights and squabbles, plenty of them, among neighbors trying to rebuild. You'll argue, too, over the stupidest little things. But there will always be someone or something there to remind you not to be petty, and you and your adversary will start working again, side by side, harder and better than you did before. Soon enough you'll learn how to work things out by talking calmly first, not jumping immediately to taking offense. The more you talk things out, the smoother life will get. And you'll make new friends that way. They'll never replace the old, but they will help you to find a new way to live.
Most of all, it takes love. Without my mother, I never, ever would have made it through. She loved me enough to keep me indoors as a young child, not to let me play out on the streets like I wanted, unaware as I was of the danger. She loved me enough to hold me close when I was scared, sad, angry at all that was happening around us. She loved me enough to make my life as normal as she could--"Trunks, clean up your room!"..."Trunks, take out the trash, please"...as our world was crashing down around us. And she loved me enough to send me to another time so I could be a hero for our own. How could she know what she would be doing when she told me she wanted me to bring Goku that warning? Yet she gave me some of the hardest, and some of the happiest, days of my life, and offered me the chance to save my world, though not in the way she thought she did.
Her love made my life bearable. She was the key to everything, both the beginning and the end of my greatest adventure. She set it in motion, and was there at the finish line to welcome me back. Without her, the pain of my wounds, my losses, would have overcome me.
But I've overcome, instead.
My name is Trunks. Welcome to my world.
It will always be full of peace.