episode seven ---Connection---
(Rating: T)
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The heat produced by Pan's blast scorched Trunks' eyebrows. He had no other option but to charge to the next true level of Super Saiyajin, a level he had reached years ago but had never been forced to use in the long run. The first stage of Super Saiyajin wouldn't cut it with a Super Saiyajin KameHameHa, and so, Trunks was left with no choice but to call out more power. He shielded his face, then absorbed what was left of Pan's blast with his dominant aura. He had never been forced to ascend to Super Saiyajin Two. He had thought it necessary to defeat his time's Cell but he'd overestimated the creature, which proved nothing compared to the Perfect Cell that had killed him years before. But fighting Cell or the Androids was different from fighting your own kind. It felt different. It was different.
The area surrounding both Super Saiyajin settled, and Trunks managed to catch his breath. The last time he'd held his breath like that was so long ago, he didn't even remember.
He noticed she didn't move and therefore he stayed put as well. Whatever the girl was thinking, Trunks did not care. He wasn't angry with her, for he was mostly furious with himself, his own inability to predict her assault and hold some kind of superiority over her like he held superiority over everyone in this world. But she wasn't of this world so in that sense it was different. This was the second time she'd caught him off-guard. What did this mean? He noticed the girl powered down, and by instinct, he did the same. They didn't say anything for a very long time, simply stood opposite each other, softly gasping for air, hoping the other wouldn't catch wind of their lassitude.
Had he become a docile creature, being forced to live in an untouched world for so long? Had the scars left on Chikyuu's soil and in his heart slowly faded, to become no more than faint memories? Had the destruction of his arch enemies and the remedial effect of time dispersed his combatant nature to the point he was no longer able to think like an apposite warrior? Had the warrior-soul left him along with the light fading from Cell's heartless eyes as he'd destroyed him? Was his ability to become a Super Saiyajin still, but a remnant of what he'd been capable of years ago?
Once, Trunks had thought becoming a Super Saiyajin was something only a select, elite group was capable of. Super Saiyajin was a display of power and control beyond the grasp of mere humans, beyond the grasp of just about any warrior, even the most hardened Saiyajin. But was achieving Super Saiyajin really that special? This girl, Pan, had but a quarter of Saiyajin blood running through her veins. How could any human ever achieve something as profound and unique as Super Saiyajin? She wasn't just human either, she was but a girl!
Trunks looked at her, her bloodshot eyes not focusing on him at all, looking beyond, as if she was afraid to look at him. Trunks had been confronted with a powerful female before, and had learned the hard way not to underestimate any feeble looking creatures. But Pan's eyes were not like Number Eighteen's. Pan's eyes revealed a great deal of distress and pain; they revealed fear. The Androids from his timeline had long been incapable of fear, and in that sense differed greatly from their counterparts of the past time. Pan was capable of fear, and Trunks was convinced it was what drove her more than anything. This girl was not driven by fury or sheer hatred, no, this girl was driven by fear. But what kind of fear?
What kind of fear could push anyone into a position of unconditional strength that could be compared to that of a Super Saiyajin? What fear could push a little girl into becoming a Super Saiyajin?
He felt blood trickling down the corner of his lips and he wiped it off angrily with the back of his fist. Did she want a fight or was she like a terrorized housecat, unwilling to run but just as unwilling to fight?
Would he be pushing her if he'd ask her to fight him? He hadn't had a fight in so long. He'd longed to fight an enemy, anyone with the physical and mental resilience to keep up with him. He'd begged for a real skirmish for ever. She wasn't his friend. However, she wasn't his enemy either. He smirked, and he noticed it caught her interest, perhaps caught the anger still lingering inside of her.
"Is that all you got?" He told her sternly. "You managed to draw some blood, little girl. Not bad. But not nearly good enough to call yourself a Saiyajin." He realised he sounded too much like his father but didn't particularly mind. "I can take you out with one blow."
He knew he resembled his father more than he'd ever resemble his mom, his anger was the same anger his father had. His sadness was the same sadness his father had. His blue eyes tried to read her. This wasn't a time for friendly conversation. This wasn't a time for good manners. This wasn't a time to deny how much he did resemble his father, for he knew he did. He knew he was likely as bitter and sad as his father had been when he'd first met him. Was he also as proud? Was that what this was all about? Was it about pride? Or was something else at play? He didn't manage to get much out of her, yet.
"You're a joke," he continued, when he felt she wasn't biting. "There's no way you're Gohan's kid."
Her features changed, and she charged to Super Saiyajin again. Good, Trunks thought. Gohan was a touchy subject to her as much as it was to him. He'd fight her with her own medicine. He levelled to Super Saiyajin as well. There was no need to overpower her by becoming a stage two Super Saiyajin. He was unwilling to risk killing her. He was rusty, after all, and had no idea what he was still capable of after so many years.
She was yet to attack him. He figured she was waiting for him to attack instead. He wasn't very good at backing up his words with actions, and charge for her. She wasn't the enemy, after all. It struck him he'd probably be the lousiest actor to ever walk the stage on Chikyuu. He wondered if she'd notice, through the fury that was eating her.
He moved his hands in a notorious sequence, charging a blast. This was his trademark attack, and he was sure she was familiar with it, especially going by her eyes, which followed his hands by design.
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Spring was taking too long, Bulma thought to herself as she looked out the window by the kitchen sink. The trees were barely covered with buds, hiding under a blanket of frost. The lawn was bleak, and still showed signs of warfare with so many poison tearing through the land, leaving obvious scars. Her son did not wear many obvious scars, none that couldn't hide under his clothes or behind his gentle nature. But Trunks had grown awfully quiet these past few years. With each year that passed, Trunks had grown more silent, recluse if she hadn't constantly forced him to mingle with Chikyuu's growing population. The people of Chikyuu needed his support. She needed his support. What was happening to him? He'd been so happy in the post-war years she thought she would finally be able to provide him with a normal life, a contented life. What had called forth such a change in her son?
"Baachan."
The sun was bleak and could barely warm her old bones. She was getting old but there was little sign of it on the outside. Bulma mostly felt old from within. Why could her son not be happy? She closed her eyes. Son had always been carefree, able to withstand whichever horror played by his eyes. Gohan-kun had been like that, too. He'd been but a child when he'd lost his father, had been but a boy when his mentor and friends died at the hands of those vile cyborgs. Trunks had been shielded from everything. Trunks never had to bury his friends and loved ones. That is, until the boy came of age far too soon, when Gohan was so brutally murdered by Seventeen and Eighteen. What had happened to Trunks then was no more than a natural response to such a traumatic event but what had caused Trunks' recent change? Had he lost the will to live? But why? Why now?
"Baachan!"
She opened her eyes again. What was she to do? What was a mother to do? The bleak sun vanished behind a pack of clouds but Bulma didn't really notice. How could she help her son? How could she save him?
"Baachan! Baachan! Baachan!"
She looked down into the innocent eyes of a little girl, and smiled. "Yes, sweetie?"
"I want more pancakes!"
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When he was about to release his Burning Attack, Pan powered down, her raven black bangs falling in her dark eyes. He wondered if it was part of her tactics but when she dropped to her knees he felt something was amiss and he abandoned his attack. Pan was fighting her tears, Trunks noticed. She didn't speak to him, didn't even look at him, just sat there, fighting her own emotions. She let out a sob and lowered her face so he wouldn't be able to look at her face, the tears that formed and fell onto the hands that covered her eyes.
Should he comfort her? Should he offer her a shoulder? Should he say something? He didn't know. He was never good with expressing or grasping emotions. Why was she crying? Was it something he'd done? Was it something he said? An idea struck him, and he figured she was crying because he had brought up the rather sensitive matter of her father Gohan. She had never met her father, and likely, everyone had been killed by the Androids long before she came to this world. It must've been lonely for her, growing up in a world that was torn by war, bearing the legacies of both Goku and Gohan. What a weight to carry! What a responsibility to live up to! In her world, she was with him, with Trunks, her Trunks. Could it be that her Trunks was the only one left alive to understand the incredible burden of being the last of your kind, the last hope for the Earth?
She had fallen into quiet sobs no human would be able to hear. Trunks was no human. He could hear the rasps in her breath, the pressure on her chest from letting out the tip of the iceberg that was the pain she had been carrying for only she knew how many years. Not even Kami would know, for Kami was dead.
He was still standing at the same distance that had been between them for the whole of this morning. He checked his watch and corrected himself. It was well past noon. He likely wasn't the right person to comfort her and he had no clue how to anyway. He walked past her, intending to leave. He halted again, looking over his shoulder, debating whether that was the right thing to do. She likely didn't want him to see her cry. She likely didn't want him to speak to her or offer his shoulder as he reminded her too much of the things she'd lost. Was leaving really the best option? It might pain her more that he'd leave her to rot in her own sorrow like that. So what was he to do?
He walked back to her after a little while, when she'd stopped crying and reached out his hand. She looked up to him, her face tear-stained, confused.
"Come on," he said in a gentle, kind voice. "I want to show you something..." He hesitated. "It's about Gohan."
Tentatively, her hand reached out and touched his. With peaceable care, he pulled her up and their eyes met with a calm neither of them had felt in a very long time.
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A/N: I'm so terribly sorry for taking this long to update. This story is hard to write. I'm not good with angst, and terrible with anything remotely related to love. Again, I'm sorry.