Damaged
Chapter Fifteen: Symphony of the End
The youth stood stock-still, erect in the middle of the room, his posture stiff with tension he couldn't possibly rid himself of as he looked at the ruefully weeping female on the ground. Her fragile hands were shaking violently with an emotion he couldn't quite place as she hugged herself as tightly as her limp limbs would allow her to, concealing her humiliating nudity from his prying eyes.
All he could do was stand there like a log, staring listlessly at her. It wasn't as if he was void of emotion—quite the contrary! It was perhaps the fact that far too many emotions were raging inside of him, making him feel incredibly tongue-tied, which was—in itself to begin with—a very rare event, having a wit like his and all… Yet it seemed that he most needed to say something, when he needed all the creativity he could collect from inside himself to comfort her—a word which repulsed him with its mere sounding—he couldn't come up with an utterance!
It will be alright now, don't worry! No, it wouldn't be alright! She had been violated—repeatedly—and that was anything but alright! He couldn't give her back the dignity she had lost to that bastard; he couldn't return to her the respect for herself she had before she had been forced an act as revolting as a blatant rape… For some reason, he couldn't possibly lie to her it would be alright!
I'm here now, don't cry. He was there. So what if he was there? Who was he to her anyway? He was no longer even to be considered a friend of hers. Where had he been when she had first been assaulted by the jerk of Saiya-jin scum? Where had he been when she most needed him? It was his fault she was in such a situation in the first place! Besides, the sentence wasn't something he was comfortable with saying; wasn't used to saying and it felt alien to him, if even only in his mind… Then how would he be possibly able to voice those thoughts aloud when he himself didn't understand those feelings? It was ridiculous, preposterous even!
Stop crying and pick yourself up, woman! Grow a backbone, for Hell's sake! Rude as he was, obdurate as he was, the second the thought crossed his mind he kicked himself for it. It wasn't his place or right to lecture her on what to do with her life and attitude after everything he had done to her. He had put her though the same Hell he was swearing in; he had given her a taste of bitterness at too young of an age… He had been the first to try eroding her personality; he had been the first one to insult her crudely, to mock her, to taunt her, to try and dishearten her… to damage her mind and soul… And—damned he should be for even acknowledging it only to himself—he felt the tiniest tinges of regret for being quite successful at it. He was powerful, strong; he could defend himself physically; his entire life had been spent of building physical strength while she was just a fragile human woman… He couldn't possibly imagine how painful it was for a woman to be raided of her dignity in such a way… in such a disgraceful act as forceful intercourse with a man who repulsed her.
So instead of saying anything, he stood there, watching her weep while footsteps sounded down the hallway signaling the fast approach of the servants. They found the pair in the same position in which they have stood for several minutes now. If it hadn't been for the still smoking corpse of the tyrant of a Master of the manor, they could have had quite a wrong impression about Vegeta's intentions.
There was a long lingering moment of painful stillness, the only thing which broke it being Bulma's occasional sobs and sniffles muffled by her hand clasping her shuddering mouth. During that agonizing moment, it was obvious that everyone had been too stunned to react. However, it didn't actually as long as Vegeta felt it did, suddenly broken by loud cheers and gleeful cries. The servants hadn't been happier in their life – they had been finally set free of the dictatorship of that monster which treated them lower than scum.
Among the crowd was Juuhachigou, staring intently at the dark haired adolescent who seemed to be in a dizzy, for some reason she couldn't possibly care enough to try and fathom. Her cold eyes shined with the same dread-stirring realization as the onyx ones of the late Saiya-jin King did.
Even though he hadn't transformed into Super Saiya-jin, her brother knew for certain the King was alive.
Although it had been a negligible amount of energy that he had produced to turn that bastard to cinders, it would certainly be enough to alert the dark haired artificial human of the area which Vegeta resided.
In other words, he was as good as dead.
It was just a matter of time now when Juunanagou would find them and reduce their puny selves to decaying corpses. It was definitely not a very optimistic mental picture, and the mere thought of death could unsettle even the calmest of characters.
Oddly, however, Vegeta felt calmer than he had ever felt in his entire existence.
Yes, he realized he wasn't strong enough to fight and win his right to live. He was well aware they were all going to die. But perhaps he had been aware of that the entire time and it just didn't come as a surprise any longer… What was the use of prolonging it? If he had to die, then he would. If he was to die by their hands, then so be it.
Odder still, he found with astonishment with himself that the thought of never having a decent conversation with the woman before he died saddened—for lack of a more accurate word—him more than the actual process of dying.
For the time lately that he had had for himself, he had managed to realize how much the fragile human female had given him in such a short period of time compared to his life expectancy as a Saiya-jin. She had acquainted him with emotions that could probably make him warm if he just opened his heart to them—companionship, friendship… and the love of another. She had so selflessly given until she could give no more. She had served him her heart and soul on a silver platter to do with whatever he pleased. And not once had he returned those feelings in any ways, never had he made her feel needed, useful… loved… The latter he would probably never be able to do, even if he put all effort into it… It was just that the feeling was unknown to him, incapable to cope with a heart as cold as his… And that was an eternal truth… a truth that could never possibly change.
And still, she struggled. He could clearly see it in her eyes whenever they met in the house. She could feel that it was him, Vegeta, the same Vegeta she had loved, but it reached only her senses… Her mind couldn't realize it… and he would be thankful if it never did. He couldn't face her wrath when she figured out he had been alive the entire time and hadn't even dropped a mere hint about it… and eventually had put her through another Hell… Although she claimed she had hated him, detested him the entire time… he could see that the memory of him that was the only thing holding her together. And he wasn't being selfish or arrogant when thinking that—he was just being a realist.
The sigh that escaped his barely parted lips was lost to the unceasing cheers of the crowd. He noted emotionlessly that both ChiChi and Ariane were itching to rush to the woman's side yet were uncertain in how stable of a state of mind he was. Shaking his head barely visibly, he walked to the squatting female whose body convulsed with each sob and he kneeled down next to her. She couldn't even feel his touch as took off the cloth that swathed his waist and wrapped it around her instead.
The noise finally died down as he rose again, not sparing a glance more to any of them but the blonde who observed his every move as closely as a predator would follow its prey. The pair shared a meaningful glimpse before his back was facing her and slowly disappearing into the darkness of the murky corridors of the manor.
He needed some time to himself… He needed time to think… He needed to understand just why he was not as ill at ease as he should be…
…And he most definitely needed time to erase from his memory the sight of the strongest woman he had ever known weeping like a little infant over something he could have prevented if he hadn't acted like the biggest coward to walk under the suns of Vegeta-sei…
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
As soon as Rain was out of sight, a distressed pair of human women dashed towards their Queen, flinging themselves on their knees next to the squatting exotic haired regal. It took them a decent few minutes to finally make the royal blooded female come out of her nervous wreck while Goku and Krillin made the rest of the staff scramble back to their work.
"Bulma, Bulma!" the brunette of a personal maid of hers shook her by her shoulders as gently as she could manage. "Brace yourself, Bulma! It's us, ChiChi and Ariane! Bulma! Are you alright? Stop crying, Bulma, please! Calm down…" Her voice trailed off as she hugged forcefully the inadequate woman who seemed disturbingly close to insanity.
At first, the Queen's hysterics threatened to get violent before she—finally—snapped out of her daytime nightmare, returning ChiChi's hug heatedly.
"Oh, Chi, I was so-so—" she hiccupped several times, unable to finish her sentence.
"Yes, honey, I know… I know…" ChiChi stroked her head comfortingly in a maternal way. "Calm down, sweetie, it's over now…" The brunette could feel the relief enveloping her insides when she felt that her Queen was indeed trying to calm down—and was being quite successful at it too. Pulling away gently, the obsidian pair of eyes locked with the sapphire ones. "What happened, Bulma? Are you alright?" she repeated for what she felt the hundredth time for the past few minutes but felt very much inclined to hear a positive answer to.
Rubbing her eyes hastily, it registered in Bulma's mind what had actually transpired in the last few minutes. She looked around, scanning the room for the enigmatic Saiya-jin youth who had saved her but everyone she saw were her fellow human friends.
"Where is he?" she suddenly turned to ChiChi, urgency in her eyes.
"He's dead, Bulma, it's alright! Everything will be fine now—" the brunette offered kindly, thinking her friend had probably gone mad due to the pressure she had experienced today.
"Where is Rain, where did he go? I…" Her eyes fixed on a spot on the ground while her voice trailed off in thought. "I—I couldn't even thank him for his… help…" Her cerulean gaze fixed on ChiChi again. "Where is he?"
"He's around here somewhere, milady, but milady must rest now!" Ariane interjected, making ChiChi nod at her statement.
Although she resisted, Bulma didn't have a choice – the two girls wouldn't have it any other way. She had to oblige but she did so reluctantly, making a mental note of highest importance to find the boy first thing tomorrow morning.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
The blonde found the person she was looking for in the yard behind the towering Manor, his back facing her as she plodded towards him. When she was only a couple of meters away from him, she stopped abruptly and crossed her hands over her chest, her listless gaze fixed sternly on him. He was meditating, she could tell. She could almost swear she could see his gently blue aura surrounding him, colouring in the palest gold hue you could ever see every once in a while.
It was a wonder what being close to an inferior species could do to you, she let herself muse for a moment's worth. At first, when she and her brother had read what Bulma had written in that petty diary of hers, Juuhachigou had been disgusted with the weakness that shone through all of the King's actions towards the Earth Queen in the past. The blonde just couldn't grasp the concept just why someone far stronger than another would linger around long enough to begin to get influenced by the second, not to mention growing even slightly fond of them! She, for an instance, had a relative… or so she had been told that Juunanagou was to her. But she could have cared less a month ago if he got killed in combat. He meant nothing to her, even though they had spent so much time together. They were merely created for one and the same purpose, with only one goal – destroy the Saiya-jin King and rule the Universe.
However, after spending such a short time with the midget calling himself Krillin, she was actually starting to wonder if she could identify herself with that goal any longer. Vegeta had done nothing to her – he could have cared less about her existence until they blew the Earth up. Regardless of the fact her brother and she had an infinite supply of energy; she couldn't help feeling distressed by the data that had been input in her. Saiya-jins—and especially their King in particular—could display astounding willpower and—she acknowledged this guess with slight distress—whose battle power capacities seemed to be as limitless as her ki-supply was… She couldn't help the feeling that, if they pushed his buttons in a wrong way, she and her brother could end up being the preys instead of the hunters…
"You realize that you have just signed your death sentence," she said, finally breaking the suffocating silence.
"Quite," was the curt cold retort she received. She shifted her weight to her other foot in slight annoyance with the guy's high and mighty attitude in a situation when he was handicapped.
"My brother will spend night and day searching for you. He's certain to find you," she informed him nonchalantly, as if he didn't already know. He kept silent for a moment which was longer than the blonde could tolerate. Her light eye brows narrowed over her stone cold eyes. "You have eluded him; therefore he will take care you suffer a gruesome, agonizingly slow death."
There was stretched silence and this time Juuhachigou wouldn't be the one to break it.
"By you saying 'him'…" he made a dramatic pause for effect; "…should I be touched that you are throwing in the towel and I should no longer be alert you can jump down my throat any moment?"
She surprised herself by actually contemplating the question for a moment before answering.
"I suppose you better be, hot shot, or I might decide to change my opinion." He didn't plan on retorting to that. She was quickly becoming tired of this exchange. She had no idea how Bulma could stand this guy – he was so infuriating! Just as she thought that, she slapped herself… Maybe she was spending far too much time with that twit Krillin… "Perhaps I have decided that I no longer wish to be involved in others' personal grudges that do not concern me the least."
"Careful, careful there!" he exclaimed with extremely thick sarcasm. "That almost sounded human for a moment."
With a low growl but nothing else, Juuhachigou retreated from the scene, remembering the promise she had given her brother. She was just a scout and her job had been only to find the rascal. She had sworn an oath to her brother that, if she found Vegeta, she would tell him so he could personally get rid of the Saiya-jin. She didn't need to get in trouble with her trouble-making relative just because of some jerk who would die anyway.
It was either that or she was growing alarmingly soft in an alarmingly short time… a very disturbing thought to say the least…
Oh well.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
It came as a surprise to the entire mansion how quickly the mistress had recovered from a shock like the one she had endured. ChiChi couldn't help being suspicious but it was useless to interrogate the Queen over the matter. Even if she hurt, she was hiding it well from just about everyone. The brunette was starting to worry that Bulma was once again trying to enclose herself in a shell and deny anyone entrance to it. However, worried as she was, there was nothing she could do about it. Her Queen was a grown up woman and she could make her own decisions.
ChiChi could just hope they were right ones…
Being a former Queen and being used to order people around—as well as quite well acquainted with coup d'etat—Bulma wasted no time in lingering around, doing nothing. She was back on her two solid feet the next morning, ordering people to clean every room in the entire Manor, to change the curtains to ones in brighter colours, and to do all the rooms up as God knew how desperately the place needed it…
As soon as she had given everyone a task, she decided to find the Saiya-jin who had saved her the day before and return his cloth. Of course, it was just an excuse to see the quiet youth and to try to converse with him, try to figure out who he was, what he wanted in life… Guilty though she was to admit it, she couldn't hide her affection for the youngster any longer. However, it was perhaps just maternal or sisterly affection that she felt for him… She couldn't know. That made just the more reasons to talk to the enigmatic creature.
She found him in the yard… training. The word made her heart tighten in a vice and twisted it around mercilessly as it reminded her terribly of everything Vegeta had done all the time—train himself unconscious… She shoved all thoughts of the flame-haired man out of her mind as fast as she could, deciding to dwell over the past some other time.
The boy threw series of punches and swift kicks in the thick forest air, jumping around and doing somersaults in the air in the interim. She couldn't help admiring his fluid motions and the speed of his attacks… yet she couldn't help the nagging feeling of déjà vu about their pattern… There was something… something quite oddly familiar about them which she couldn't quite place. However, deciding that it was a fruitless discussion to have with oneself, she just shrugged the emotion off as she approached the guy.
"You seem to have so much energy," she pointed out, thinking she was just making him aware of her presence. However, she was quite oblivious that he could use the ki-monitoring technique quite well and had long since known she had been standing there, admiring him, or whatever it was that she had been doing.
"You have no idea." He was so blatantly cold… However, if such a thing disheartened her so easily she wouldn't have made it even to "friends" terms with the arrogant Saiya-jin prince. She smiled to her mind. How silly of her to refer to him as that – prince… Perhaps to her he would always be that, the same teenager that loathed Frieza for destroying his people and denying him the right to even know his parents… the same hatred-driven teenager who he had been… She shuddered. The thoughts made her feel uncomfortable…
"It would be nice if I could still do that myself…"
"Don't even think about it," he growled out. His head turned over his shoulder, glaring at her from the corner of his eye. "I don't like playing the role of a nanny."
"I don't recall thanking you for yesterday." Her hands gripped the fabric of the cloth in discomfort.
"I don't need your thanks." He turned his back to her again with a snort as he did so. "It is not for your thanks that I did what I did."
"What for did you do what you did then?" she inquired innocently. This time he faced her completely, their eyes locking for a long time. She couldn't quite place the look he was giving her but it was clear that he was searching her eyes. What was he searching for? She couldn't figure the guy out… He was odd… He was so different from the others… He reminded her terribly of Vegeta… and a painful reminder he was…
"You are my mistress," he pointed out.
"That is not a good enough reason for people like you." She smiled kindly at him, like a knowing mother.
"People like me, you say?" he creased an eye brow at her, his hands crossing over his chest before he could realize it. "How are you so convinced you know me well enough to classify me in a certain stereotype of people?" There it was! The same smile again! It was patronizing, irritating in a way. She was trying to make him feel inferior to her, wasn't she? She was driving him insane…
"I am quite convinced that I know perfectly well what type of a person you are." Her head tilted slightly to the side in a meaningful manner. "You are independent, like to do things by yourself and your own rules, you think people unworthy of your words—which is why you speak as rarely as you do—and your trust is something one wins with a lot of effort but can lose in the bat of an eyelash." She paused for a moment, studying his facial features for a reaction. Indifference and impassiveness was all she could find. She pushed on. "You try to hide your feelings even from yourself, and you hate to admit your wrongs and defeats."
"Tell me when I'm supposed to applaud your precise characteristic because I would hate to miss the moment," he remarked sardonically rolling his eyes in irritation. So far she had been far too precise for his liking. Wasn't he supposed to be a stranger to her now? Was he so see-through?
To his surprise, instead of rebuking with an argument, she just laughed and sat on the step of the veranda.
"Did I say something amusing?" his voice was slightly rising in volume with the annoyance he felt piquing. She shook her head slowly.
"I'm sorry; I did not mean to offend you." She blinked profusely, blinking back what he could've mistaken for… tears? "It's just that…" She paused, her throat suddenly growing dry. He cocked an eye brow at her but did not urge her on. "It's just that you remind me of a person I had known…" she continued afterwards.
Annoyed with her though he was he couldn't help feeling the tinge of curiosity of what she would say to a stranger if asked about her opinion on the topic of his character, of Vegeta's attitude towards her. He had tried to convince himself for all those five years that they had been separated that he didn't give a damn about her, that he was protecting her planet and people just out of courtesy because he felt indebted to her. He couldn't know where fact ended and his self-deceiving began but he wasn't sure he wanted to know either. He had lived just fine, ruling his planet, ordering his people around, being away from her and her softness making him feel weak and vulnerable… but it was a fact that he hadn't felt much better without her there either.
It was quite a complicated matter but he decided he could allow himself the luxury of hearing what she had to say. God forbid, he was interested!
"A friend, you say?" He sat down next to her, avoiding eye contact. "Why do you speak in a past tense?" He felt stupid… playing a fool wasn't something suitable for a king of his caliber. Then again—did he have a choice in the matter?
"He passed away just recently." She wasn't at all eager to look at him in the eye either. "I miss him incredibly…"
"You humans with your pathetic friendships…" he shook his head in true dejection. It was truly appalling… These creatures, though weak and fragile, were so eager to be hurt more by creating puny relationships between each other, their pathetically short life-spans quite inefficient but quite long enough to make the one left behind after the other's death hurt terribly. It was laughable, how idiotic those creatures could be! Compassion, affection, love—all those emotions so important to them, yet all of them being the ones that hurt them the most. He had heard of unrequited love; he was aware that affection could be a one-sided thing as well. Some of them even felt compassion for there enemies, because "it was humane"! Ridiculous!
"Are all of you Saiya-jins as cocky as that?" She glared heatedly at him. "He used to say the same thing, all the time…" Well, duh! Perhaps he did because it was the truth! "At the end he understood that it was the care for another which elevates a person—in both mental and physical strength—and not emotions such as rage and hatred." There was a rueful smile playing across her lips while his eyes sunk to the ground. He hadn't known that he knew that… He was still as convinced that weak emotions had nothing to do with his physical strength… However, he didn't want to burst her bubble. He'd never believe the things she preached, he knew then…
"You said you miss him incredibly?"
"Oh, yes;" she laughed remorsefully. "That I do. I miss the bickering and the way he treated me as if I don't come from a royal family, just like he did. You most certainly know him, your King? Did you know I was a Queen too… before a pair of monsters destroyed my home…?" Her eyes grew hard with grief. "I thought it was the most terrible thing that could happen to me. I was wrong…" Her jaw line tightened and she blinked profusely again as more tears threatened to spill. With yesterday's events and reliving the pain of that fateful day… it was overwhelming her. "However, when they came here and killed him, I knew I had been wrong…"
Although she didn't note it as anything special as it was his ordinary state, Vegeta remained quiet at the statement. It was a piece of information he had never been offered…
He had always thought that, no matter how sentimental she was or whatever, the love for her parents—the people who have raised her—was far greater than the affections she felt for him… Then why on Vegeta-sei had she said what she just said?
"I don't understand," he admitted.
"Rain, the love for the parents and the love for a person of the opposite gender are quite different things. Do not mistake one for the other." Was she reading his mind? Was he supposed to feel distressed from the accuracy of her statement and the reason of his puzzlement? Because he most certainly felt distressed about it…
"If he was as terrible as you make him out to be, why did you stay by his side?" She thought for a moment.
"Love is not something that can be described with words…"
"Try," he demanded anyway.
"Well…" Her face adopted a wistful look. "I think that in him, I found an even match. It was as if… as if I was the beginning of the sentence and he was its proper continuation. Sorry; I'm not good with the analogy but it's difficult to explain…" She shook her head. "Our fights… we both knew that most were nothing serious… We often said terrible things to each other in the heat of an argument… And even though he wasn't a person to give apologies, he always found a way to compensate." A sad smile took over her facial expression. "He never said he loved me but I could feel it in his touch that he did, in fact, feel for me…" He opened his mouth to rebuke but—thankfully for him—she shrugged the topic off quickly. "I'm sorry, I'm starting to discus things you care none about and you wouldn't want to know about. I just wanted to give this back to you." She handed him over the cloth.
He took it from her hands and sighed to himself. She had been right… They were a match made in Hell, but a perfect match nonetheless. To others it could have appeared that all they did was fight—and it was the right impression to get. It was the truth, after all. But there had been a lot of passion and their last time together in the Palace, in his quarters, had quite proved it still existed, as feverously as ever… if not even more so. Then just why, why the Hell had they separated? He couldn't stop thinking of her and she had had a very hard time getting over his betrayal… because she had still loved him. Then why, why did they fall apart?
Oh, yes; he was a Saiya-jin and she was a human. Like he had said before: a match made in Hell.
It could have been—again—his cowardice, of course.
Try as he might, it was something he couldn't deny any longer. He had run away, to put it down as blatantly as that. He had been afraid of the feelings she had stirred in him and he had bowed out. He had put an end to something that could have been the most wonderful thing that happened to him in his entire life—a fuel for the fires that drove him—or the worst nightmare he had ever had…
…And the more time he spent with her again, after five years of self-conviction, he just couldn't bring himself to believe it would have truly been the nightmare he had forced himself to think of it as…
He gazed in her eyes, pools of cerulean clear waters, searched them for something, anything that could tell him she believed all that she had said. He was incapable of reading anything… He was blind, his eyes sightless to emotions… He understood the body language well but poor couldn't describe how bad he did at reading feelings, whether his own or others'…
…He felt pathetic…
…He felt so empty…
…And he knew exactly why…
God forbid, he had been such a fool!
All this time, this frustration, this anger… Had it truly been directed at her, for being weak as she was, turning him as weak and vulnerable? Had it truly been intended for her, this hatred and fury, and not at the thing he hated most—his own cowardice?
It scared him that he had no answer to that question…
However, Reality was soon to knock on the door, bringing them back from their own world in the face of a deafening and blinding explosion…
…The symphony of the End…
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Spell check later. I wanted to post the chapter for you before anything. Thanks for reading. I would be thankful if you leave a comment after reading the chapter.
Yours sincerely, Dark Hope Assassin.
