~16. Desperation~

The Genki Dama was the most awe-inspiring thing I'd ever seen. I was in a bit of shock after that. It took a second for it to occur to me - hey, we did it. Once that realization entered my mind, though, I was so happy that I forgot all about how tired I was, and I leapt straight off of the cliff upon which I was standing and ran to where Goku was still lying, unable to move, shouting and whooping all the while. What a tremendous relief I felt then. There's nothing like it.

Gohan and I sat next to Goku and we briefly celebrated our victory. It was a muted celebration, because we'd been through a lot and we all were messed up pretty badly, although none of us half as badly as Goku. It's a wonder he wasn't dead of some sort of injury by that point. I remember feeling very, very tired, so tired that I could've just laid down and never woken up again. Still, we smiled and said a couple of self-congratulatory things. We didn't have long to celebrate, though, because just then something fell from the sky and landed with a resounding thump not far from us. It was Vegeta. He didn't move after hitting the ground. Gohan was alarmed, but I wasn't afraid. After all, I was sure that nothing, not even something like Vegeta, could survive what I had just seen. Frankly, I was surprised that there was enough of him left to recognize. I should have known better. Vegeta's like a cockroach. You just can't kill him.

I approached what I assumed to be Vegeta's corpse and regarded it. He looked like hell. It was hard to believe that he'd caused so much trouble, from looking at him. "Well," I declared, "I guess I'll at least dig a grave."

The sardonic reply came, "For whom? Yourselves?"

No. Oh, no. It was just impossible. I just couldn't bring myself to believe it. Yet Vegeta opened his eyes and stood up with visible effort. He still looked like hell. I could hear him strain with every breath. When he got up and faced me again, though, he was as terrifying as ever. More, even. I suppose that I could have leapt back and thrown a Kienzan - I probably had enough energy for one more if I didn't mind passing out - but I was so frightened that I froze. He knocked me aside. The blow hurt, but it had nowhere near the punch of the last time he'd hit me. I was still trying to come to grips with the fact that he was still alive as I coughed up more blood and brought myself painfully to my knees again. It wasn't fair. We had done it, we'd saved the world. Who the hell did Vegeta think he was, still being alive after that?

He walked to where he was standing in the middle of all of us, complaining loudly about how much trouble we'd given him. He said that there was no way that he, the prince of Saiyans, should have struggled with 'scum' such as us. I had nearly gotten to my feet again when he screamed and made an enormous explosion that went out in all sides from where he was standing and made another crater that you can still see today. That was what Vegeta had planned to do from the start in case he needed to wipe us all out at once, but he had been weakened so much that we all survived it. I was thrown against a rock ledge. I started to try to stand again, but it was so hard. My muscles ached and shook all over, and I felt light-headed and drained.

Vegeta was getting desperate. He approached Gohan, who was his biggest threat remaining, to try and finish him off, almost falling twice on the way. I managed to lift myself enough to see something startling about the same time that Vegeta did - Gohan's tail had grown back. Truthfully, I'd forgotten that he'd ever had one. It must have been cut off by Piccolo at some point. I was almost feverish at the thought of it. It was a long shot, but if Gohan could transform into the ape then we could still have a chance. It still seemed hopeless, though, because Vegeta was going to kill Gohan before he could do anything. I wanted so badly to attack Vegeta or even shout something to Gohan, but I was so injured that it was a tremendous effort just to keep from losing consciousness. Fortunately, Yajirobe prevented disaster one more time. Although Vegeta saw Yajirobe's wild attack coming, he was so weakened that he couldn't dodge it. Vegeta's ki was even high enough that under normal circumstances Yajirobe's sword wouldn't have scratched him, but he didn't have enough energy left to keep his invulnerability going, and the sword cut into him. I think that Vegeta was just so startled from the attack that he fell over.

You know, it makes my head hurt to think of that battle and how desperately it was fought. We were so lucky so many times. On several occasions, if things had gone one inch or one second differently, we would all have died that day, Vegeta would have destroyed the Earth, and you would not be reading this. A person can drive themself insane with "what if"s.

Unlike Yajirobe, who loudly proclaimed his victory, I didn't think for a moment that Vegeta was dead. He got back up pretty quickly and beat Yajirobe around a little bit to ensure that he wouldn't interrupt things again. This bought us about fifteen seconds, during which Gohan had to see Vegeta's artificial moon or we were all dead for sure. Gohan was still conscious and starting to get back up, but he didn't know about the transformation. Someone had to tell him.

"Gohan, look at the ball in the sky!" I shouted. Or, at least, that's what I ordered my body to do. Instead, I muttered, "Gohan..." and pitched face-first into the dirt. I was even weaker than I'd thought. Somehow Goku, who was more injured than me by far, managed to say what I'd tried to say to Gohan.

Gohan rolled over rather groggily and looked up at the glowing thing in the sky. When Vegeta saw this, he screamed and practically threw himself in Gohan's direction, desperate to kill him before he could transform. Fortunately, he didn't quite make it before Gohan started to transform. Vegeta actually pounded on Gohan's body as it grew into the ape, but he didn't seem to harm him much. After transforming, the giant ape Gohan started randomly destroying things. Like Goku, he lost control when he changed. I wasn't very far from him, so I was really alarmed to find that out.

"Gohan, go for the Saiyan!" I screamed. Amazingly, I actually seemed to get through to him, because after that Gohan stopped, slowly turned to Vegeta, and began growling at him. He threw a large boulder at him that he dodged, and then jumped toward Vegeta. Vegeta's last move was to throw something that looked like a Kienzan at Gohan's tail. It cut it off, but it didn't really matter, because Gohan still had his momentum, and just the weight of the giant ape falling on him was enough to finish off the battered Vegeta. There you have it, one of the major battles for the fate of the Earth. You won't find any of that in any history books to my knowledge, although by now most reasonable people have acknowledged the fact that it was the Saiyans who caused the destruction of East Capital City. Some stubborn people will no doubt declare that I've distorted or perhaps even fabricated this battle. I guess I can't blame them for not wanting to think that the fate of the Earth hung in the balance like that. In any event, I swear to you that it's all true. Take that for what it's worth.

Gohan returned to normal pretty quickly after they hit the ground. Vegeta STILL wasn't dead, of course. He took a remote control out of his armor and summoned his spaceship, which arrived a couple of minutes later, a strange little spherical thing. Meanwhile, I finally managed to stand up. I almost blacked out from the rush of standing up, but I managed to hold on and climb slowly and painfully down the cliff I'd been thrown against. By the time I reached the ground, Vegeta's spaceship had arrived. He started to crawl toward it, but he could barely move. Still, I realized with alarm that he was escaping. After all that we'd been through, I just couldn't let that happen. At that point, I was the only person who could have stopped him. Yajirobe and Gohan were both unconscious, and Goku was just a couple of steps above dead. I wasn't exactly in terriffic shape myself, but I could still walk. It was up to me.

I didn't have the strength left to throw a punch, much less a Kamehameha, but I found Yajirobe's sword lying near me and picked it up. I knew right then that I could kill him for sure. I was staggering, but I'd still reach him way before he could manage to scramble into his ship. I wanted to finish it as quickly as possible. I don't like killing. I hate killing. I believe that each and every life in this universe is sacred. Many's the time that my wife has called me ridiculous for refusing to crush a spider or something of that sort. When you have to do something, though, you have to do it. I knew that I'd hate myself if I let him get away.

So, I did reach Vegeta before he got away. He looked up at me, terrified, and froze. Suddenly, I felt righteous. This was the moment of retribution. I ought to send Vegeta to Hell with something to think about, I reasoned.

"This... is for everyone that you've killed." I said, and I lifted Yajirobe's katana above my head. I could have killed him. I would have. I very nearly did before I heard a voice in my head.

"Kuririn, stop!" it said. It was Goku, talking to me telepathically. I've got no idea where he picked up that little skill. I stopped just short, and I trembled. Every fiber of my being raged at stopping. I was avenging my friends. I was saving the world. Me! What the hell did I mean by stopping? Although one voice in my head told me to stop, a thousand more told me, "No! Kill him! Do it now! Now, you idiot! Do it!"

Still, I turned around and faced Goku. He spoke to me again, "Kuririn, please... I have one request... please let the Saiyan go."

I told Goku that he was insane. I told him that Vegeta had tried to kill the whole world. I told him that if we let Vegeta go, he'd heal, come back, and kill us. His response was basically, "Yeah, I know, but..."

But? Goku told me that he'd been shocked and terrified at Vegeta's power. Well, so had I. Goku, though, also felt happy somewhere inside, thrilled to be fighting such power. He begged me to let him handle Vegeta himself next time. It was that damn almost-suicidal instinct of the Saiyans'. Thank goodness that insanity doesn't seem to turn up in Gohan and the other half-Saiyans.

I was furious. For a moment, I wanted to use the sword on Goku. What the hell did he think he was doing? Yet, by that point I'd already lost the battle. My will to kill Vegeta wasn't honestly that strong, and there was only one impassioned moment in which I could actually have done it. In addition to that, I couldn't bear to refuse Goku's request, as much as I owed him. He was begging me.

I looked at Vegeta one more time, now fully inside of his ship. It isn't too late, I told myself. Goku had no power over me. I could blow him off and do it anyway. Nothing would stop me. Hell, Goku would probably thank me later when he was back to his senses, and even if he didn't, so what? That Saiyan bastard had to die. I sighed. I wasn't fooling anyone, I'd lost. I let the katana fall to the ground.

"Goku," I said, "Next time, beat Vegeta by yourself!"

Injured as he was, Vegeta couldn't resist talking a little more trash, and then his ship closed up and burst upward into the sky. I watched it leave with great remorse. I realized that if Vegeta came back and destroyed the Earth, then I'd have only myself to blame. I only felt that way for a few seconds, though. Honestly, I've never been big on guilt. Things happen the way they happen, and feeling bad about it isn't going to do me or anyone else a bit of good. So, I shrugged it off and just felt relieved that the battle was over, at least for the time being. I lifted Gohan's naked, unconscious body and carried it to where Goku was lying. Oh, yeah, I also grabbed Vegeta's remote, figuring it might come in handy.

Almost exactly then, an enormous aircraft landed nearby. Muten Roshi leaned out of a window and shouted at me. It made me so happy to see a familiar face. I'd been apart from Muten Roshi for so long that I'd come to miss him an awful lot. After all, he has always cared for me. It wasn't Muten Roshi that came out of the craft first when it landed, though. Chichi tore out of that thing like some kind of rampaging animal. She leapt right over the poor, broken body of her husband and practically knocked me over in snatching Gohan away from me. She cried and shouted a lot of things like "My baby". You know, I don't blame her one bit for being worried about Gohan, but wouldn't you think that she'd be just a tad concerned about her husband, who had nearly died saving the planet? Maybe it's just me. Hell, I know that if I were seriously hurt, 18 would damn well care about it. Oh well.

I couldn't get through to Chichi, so I went back to Goku. Muten Roshi, Bulma, and Karin-sama were all hovering over him. I bit my lip at seeing Bulma. I had to get it out of the way. "Bulma," I said, "The Saiyans were more powerful than we'd ever thought. Everyone but the four of us died, including Yamucha. I'm sorry."

I couldn't believe my eyes or ears as Bulma practically blew off what I'd just said. "Oh, I figured, but it's no big deal," she said. "We can just use the dragon balls to resurrect them later." Poor Bulma. She can be denial personified sometimes. I had to explain that Piccolo had died, and there were no more dragon balls.

"Come on, you're joking, right?" Her voice trembled. Her eyes searched me for some kind of release from the terrible news. It felt pretty awful. She broke down and started crying. I couldn't look at her.

The mood was pretty solemn after that. Everyone got into the craft, including Goku, who had to be carefully carried in. As we took off, my thoughts went back to what I'd heard Vegeta say about the dragon balls on Namek. I really didn't want to get anyone's hopes up in case it was nothing, but everyone was so terribly sad that I just couldn't bear it anymore. I had to say something. I said that there might be a chance to bring them back, but before I could say anything else we arrived at the location where the dead bodies of our friends were. We had to go out and collect them and put them in preservation capsules. I didn't help, actually. I used my injuries as an excuse to stay in so I wouldn't have to look at Yamucha's body. It made me feel terrible just thinking about it.

Gohan woke up right after we did that. He was really panicked. I tried to reassure him about Vegeta by saying that "I bet he never comes back," even though I didn't believe it. Gohan calmed down, though, after seeing that his father was okay. It's nice that someone showed some concern for the poor guy. Chichi was still being really stubborn.

Anyway, everyone focused their attention on me as I explained about Piccolo and Kami really being aliens, and about the possibility of more dragon balls on the planet Namek. Everyone cheered up considerably after I said that, except for Bulma, who sighed and pointed out that we didn't even know where Namek was. Goku was able to ask Kaiô-sama about it, though. Pretty soon we heard his voice echoing through our heads, a new experience for most of us. He gave us the planet's coordinates, and we started to get hopeful again, but a second time Bulma shot us down. She dutifully informed us that using the fastest ship that Capsule Corp could make, getting to Namek would take several thousand years. Everyone got pretty quiet after that. However, I just grinned and whipped out the remote control I'd taken from Vegeta, proudly declaring that we could just use the ship that Nappa'd come in. Well, that time not even Bulma had anything to say. Everyone was happy. Finally, we had some hope.

The first place we went was the Kame House, where Pu'ar and Oolong were still anxiously awaiting any news. I insisted upon getting out to meet them, hoping that for once I could break bad news to someone with some amount of grace. We went inside and gave them the main layout of what had happened. I took Pu'ar aside, though. Her eyes searched me just like Bulma's, pleading for some kind of hope. I was grateful that this time I had at least a little to give.

"Pu'ar," I said, "Yamucha was one of those who died fighting the Saiyans. I'm sorry."

"Oh..." she murmured, "Oh. And the dragon balls?"

"Piccolo also died." I bit my tongue a little, not sure how she'd react to that. I guess I kind of expected her to burst into tears or something, but she just nodded and sighed.

"I see," she said. "Oh, Yamucha-sama... how we wasted our time together..."

"But hold on," I hurriedly responded. "There's still a chance to bring him back to life."

"What?" I was amazed how stern Pu'ar's cute little face suddenly appeared. "You shouldn't do this to me, Kuririn. It will only hurt more."

"No, really! You see... you... see... I..."

Yeah, right about then is when I figure I passed out from blood loss. A piece of advice: If you're injured, pay attention to your body. The next thing that I remember is waking up about a day later in a hospital, with my arm in a sling and my head wrapped up in bandages. I had to walk with a crutch, too. Considering the beating that I took, though, I didn't fare so badly. The doctor said that Gohan and I would be okay with just three days in the hospital. Goku, on the other hand, was completely immoblized from head to toe and wrapped up like a mummy. Karin-sama said that there'd be more senzu in a month, though, so we didn't worry too much about it. Yajirobe was taken care of too, but he wasn't hospitalized. All he had was a little bruising and some cuts. To hear him talk, though, he'd had his back broken. That's Yajirobe for you. Pretty soon we were visited by Karin-sama, Muten Roshi, the Ox King, and Chichi, who finally at least asked Goku if he was going to be okay. The mood was pretty happy. I took a good-natured jab at Yajirobe for begging Vegeta for mercy, for which he threatened to beat me up. Boy, there's a joke if I've ever heard one. Even with a crutch and a sling I could take Yajirobe in a walk. We were really anxious, though, for the arrival of Bulma, who'd promised to come with a way worked out for us to leave for Namek.

--END OF CHAPTER SIXTEEN--