Sins of the Father

Chapter 36: In a Perfect World


Piccolo flew over the seemingly endless Southern Sea for a while, intermittently taking breaks on any small, errant island that came across his path. They were, for the most part, unremarkable. The first island he came across was barely more than a bunch of sediment piled up on an old and dying coral bed. It was just large enough to fit a small shack on top of it.

The next island Piccolo came across was large enough to fit a small town. Shaped into a crescent, it was mostly comprised of long, uninterrupted stretches of sandy coastline, with the smallest snatches of forest growth and trees farther inland. During his break on this island, Piccolo found no animal life- it was solely occupied by plant life.

He briefly considered decimating the place and wiping it off the face of the planet; eventually, however, he decided his energy would best be spent elsewhere.

The third island Piccolo came across was strangely rocky, lined by unclimbable rock faces and detritus that continually banged against its sides. It was here that Piccolo decided to stay, sit, and meditate.

Without question, I am the strongest being on this planet… I have surpassed my father, those humans- I have even surpassed Kami himself.

And yet, my victory was hollow. Feels hollow. Together, those damn fighters were too numerous, too powerful to defeat on my own. The memory given to me from you, father, isn't perfect- despite your best efforts, I lack the knowledge to create allies of my own. How, then, do I succeed where you have failed? How do I achieve an impossible goal?

I have delivered the peace owed to you, father. Why, then, does your voice continue to nag at the back of my head?... What is it that you want from me?

I have nothing but time. I can do nothing but train. For you, father, I hope that will be enough.

0o0o0

'So this is the tower, eh?' Yajirobe walked up to the base and looked skyward- he squinted after a moment. 'It's pretty tall.'

'That it is,' Korin replied from behind him. 'It's going to be a long climb, so you better prepare.'

'Huh?' Yajirobe looked over his shoulder at Korin. 'You're not climbing up?'

'No-'

'- don't you live up there?'

Korin scowled at Yajirobe. 'I have alternate means of transportation.' As if on cue, a dark yellow cloud billowed down from the sky. 'Gratefully returned to me by a former student.' The cat climbed on top of it, using the wooden stick to help himself up. 'I'll see you at the top.'

'I can't ride up with you?' Yajirobe asked dimly.

'...No, that'd defeat the whole purpose… of the test…' Korin cocked his head at Yajirobe. 'You said you were a martial artist?'

'Yea! A… *cough*, martial artist.' Yajirobe gave Korin a big, convincing smile.

'... Alright. See you at the top.' The cloud backed up, then zoomed up into the sky.

Yajirobe watched Nimbus fly away for a moment. Once Korin had disappeared from sight, he spat on his hands and jumped up onto the tower, beginning his climb. I won't be denied those beans!

0o0o0

Keeping a steady pace behind Kakarot, Chi-Chi forced herself to stay alert. The forest was claustrophobic- shrubs and tree branches jutted into their path as much as they were able to, making it difficult for her to keep track of her guide. Her eyes flitted up briefly at Kakarot before looking back at the ground in front of her.

She had been traveling with him for a few months now, yet the breakthrough hadn't come. He infuriatingly continued to keep her at arm's length away from him; Chi-Chi guessed that he did this because he was either scared, distrustful, or both. She had hoped that Kakarot was finally ready to address himself and the back-breaking baggage Chi-Chi had glimpsed him carry. With every passing aimless day they spent traveling together, however, she began to doubt that this was the case. Days would pass without him saying a single word to her; his only acknowledgment of her existence was the additional food he would forage or hunt from the land. The routes they traveled by were as wide as highways and as narrow as single-person dirt trails. The utter randomness of these paths caused her to wonder if Kakarot himself even knew where they were going.

Though something was different about today. Kakarot had started off in the morning a bit more urgent, had walked a bit faster than he usually did. Chi-Chi couldn't help but notice a rushed anxiety underlying these actions- how someone became when trying to hasten something good happening. She had a feeling that she was very consciously being led to something, to fulfill some type of role, regardless of her own say in the matter. Accordingly, a growing feeling of unease was taking hold of her. And yet, here I am.

The path they trudged upon slowly widened outwards and opened into a larger clearing. Chi-Chi first noticed how the trails of objects dragged away crisscrossed the area, forming dark marks in the freshly exposed dirt. To her right, she saw a squat, solitary shack, oddly untouched considering the recent activity all around it.

'Here,' Kakarot whispered, drawing her attention to another path that branched out of the clearing to her right. 'It's close.'

Chi-Chi narrowed her eyes and asked roughly the same question she had been asking for months: 'Close to what?'

He gave the briefest glance back at her before turning forwards and setting off. His tail was uncharacteristically still as he moved.

Yep, giving me a straight answer would be a little too much… Even as she turned to follow Kakarot, her eyes lingered on the shack. It was so out-of-place amidst the meticulously affected landscape.

The realization occurred to Chi-Chi- he knows this place. The way he walks across the ground- he knows where he is. She quickly set off after him.

'This is your home, isn't it?' she called out after him. He quickened his pace; she matched it. 'You grew up here. You-' she held out her hands in front of her, as if trying to cradle her own thought '-brought me here-'

'So what?' Kakarot turned to her, fury brimming from his face. 'What does that matter? You think you know how to use this knowledge against me? To destroy me?'

'I didn't say any of that,' Chi-Chi replied in a quiet voice.

The anger on his face passed. Revealed beneath it was a different form of anger- self-directed. 'We're close,' he muttered. 'We're so close…' He spun around, pointing. 'It's there…'

Chi-Chi glanced between his indication and the realm beyond it: a close-knit, tangled section of the forest littered with dead and snapped trees. She noted that the path forward looked to be unnaturally flattened by a hundred different heavy objects passing over it. The haphazard and random tree trunks she spotted up ahead fit the bill.

She took a few hesitant steps past Kakarot, watching the tree lines for movement of any kind. Stepping over a few logs, she emerged into some sort of grotto, meticulously constructed to cover something.

In the center of the makeshift structure was something Chi-Chi had never encountered before. A dull sheen ran up and down the length of a sphere, at once giving it both a hazily familiar and strikingly foreign appearance. She pressed her hand to its surface- it was cool to the touch, remarkably temperate. The door, she noticed as she pressed her hand against it, was caught on something at her feet. Reaching, she bent down-

A hand gripped her arm. 'Don't,' Kakarot said. 'Do that.'

She straightened, scowling. 'Why shouldn't I? You haven't told me a good reason not to.'

He frowned at her, his eyes darting between her and the sphere behind her. 'You need to promise me-'

'I'm not going to promise anything-'

'Promise me,' he continued, glaring at her, 'that you'll listen to me. To what I'm about to say.'

'I…' her scowl weakened. 'Fine. It's about time, anyway. Talk.'

The tension seemed to drain away from his face. 'I'm a Saiyan,' he said. 'and this,' he gestured, 'brought me to this planet.'

'You're…' she turned back to the sphere. 'This brought you here?...'

He held his joyless, haggard gaze.

0o0o0

It wasn't eminently clear what quality of the Capsule Corp gardens had so engrossed Yamcha. He had been here before. Some plants he remembered pruning or caring for in the darker moments of his life years earlier, while some were wholly unrecognizable to him.

It was only after he had sat on a wooden bench motionless for nearly two hours did it click. This is the garden as it was. Wholly and totally regrown. Capsule Corp, like the city around it, had rebuilt. The devastation of King Piccolo had clotted, healed, and disappeared, with nary a blemish to notice. At every wound, life had rushed in, filling in the gaps with as much, if not more, vitality than before.

Basking in such a pronounced scene, for the first time in years Yamcha felt tears well out from his eyes. Even this, however, gave way to a blanketing joy. What else was he supposed to do when confronted by such a sight?

Engrossed as he was, Yamcha completely failed to notice Bulma until she tapped the side of the bench. 'I was looking for you,' she said.

'Was this the first place you looked?' he asked.

'Second. First I checked whether you were sleeping in the guest room.'

Yamcha glanced at her, a wry expression on his face. He let the silence return, however, and resumed his idle watch of the gardens.

Side by side, one standing and one sitting, they admired.

'Yamcha,' Bulma said after a time, 'how do you feel? You aren't out here because… well-'

'-don't worry,' he assuaged her, 'it's not like before.' He settled into his seat some. 'A lot of things feel different now. I can't say if they're actually different, but… I feel better.' He lifted his gaze from the garden and looked up at Bulma, a weak smile pulling up on his face. 'That's better, right?'

'It is.' Bulma placed a hand on Yamcha's shoulder and squeezed it. 'Wanna go get something to eat?'

He took a final look at the garden before moving his gaze out to West City beyond it. 'I'd like that.'

0o0o0

'Take a gander.'

Krillin whistled.

It was everything Rayne had said and more. The trees crept and bent down from the slopes, seeking to completely conceal the riverbank. Crystal clear water babbled downstream, interrupted by the odd rock or jut in the land. On a particularly level spot of land a squat, modest log cabin looked over the water.

Beaming, Rayne led Krillin closer. 'It took a while before I was able to identify the good trunks,' she explained as she ducked around a half-fallen tree, 'you know, tell the good wood from the bad. You'd be amazed by the amount of time I wasted doing that…'

Padding across the forest floor, Krillin walked right up to the door of the building and examined it up close. 'It's nice,' he said after a moment, 'but it can be improved.'

Behind him, Rayne's excited smile vanished. 'Excuse me?'

He moved to the side, sizing up a moderate plot of land next to Rayne's house. 'I'm going to improve on your design,' he announced, turning back to her. 'Do you mind if I try to build something right here?'

Her mouth boomeranged between annoyance and anger; after a moment, she reigned it into a horizontal line. 'I…' she blinked, then shook her head and walked into her house, shutting the door behind her.

'Huh,' Krillin said to himself. 'Weird.' He started scanning the nearby treeline for good building material. 'She also didn't say no…'

0o0o0

'Everything… makes sense,' Chi-Chi thought out-loud, leafing through a stack of journal entries. 'The anger, the hostility… it's all here. Since the day you arrived here, since the very moment you walked out from that spaceship, you were like this… but….' she lifted up another page, flipping it over to its back. '... it wasn't you… none of what you did was you…'

Nearby, Kakarot leaned against the shack wall, lingering in the unlit gloom. His tail swished down and under from his legs.

'Don't you see?' She practically yelled, twisting and turning to him. 'This is it! The proof of who you are- of who you could be! It's all here!'

Aside from shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Kakarot didn't react.

'Did you enjoy doing any of this? she asked after a moment, gesturing to the notes. 'The death and disobedience you enacted? This… this is…' her words deserted her, leaving her groping for meaning. 'The way Gohan described you… it doesn't seem like you enjoyed it.'

'I can't say,' he murmured. 'I don't know anything for sure. I'm… very conflicted.' He rose off the wall and walked past her. Chi-Chi glared at his back and followed.

'What do you mean, you're conflicted?' she pressed. 'Are you saying you actually enjoyed-'

'-maybe.' As they emerged outside, Kakarot swept his gaze across the clearing. 'I don't know- about any of this. I spent a few years after the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament confused, questioning- but that ended up creating more questions than answers, more ambiguity.' Slowly, he raised his arms, his eyes tracing every inch of every scar that patterned his body. 'I only have a few ways to judge myself. I can look at myself, for example. When I do, I see the blood of the dead, but none of my blood is on them…'

Chi-Chi frowned. 'Blood? What are you talking about?'

'It's like a measurement of sorts. I've gotten very good,' he said, oddly detached, 'at spilling other people's blood without spilling any of my own. I'm… good at killing.' His eyes flicked over to hers. 'That's who I am.'

He spoke with such assurance that a chill went down Chi-Chi spine- numbly, she glimpsed his brown tail curling and fanning behind him. Taking a breath, she gathered her thoughts. 'Who sends an infant to another planet?' she asked him directly, forcing herself to stare back at Kakarot. 'What kind of person- society- does that?'

His gaze grew distant before shifting away. 'I wouldn't know. But maybe whoever did it is strong, or respects strength. Maybe they did it because I am strong, or because they wanted me to become strong. Anything but a weakling...'

'Bullshit.' She stepped closer and took a limp hand in one of her own. 'You don't believe that,' she asserted, 'you know that isn't true.'

'Oh?' Kakarot replied bitterly. 'What's true, then?'

While holding one of his hands, Chi-Chi jabbed a finger into his chest- it was, at the same time, reassuring and aggressive for Kakarot. 'They didn't care for you-' she said in a low voice, 'and so they shipped you off without a family or any of your own kind to another planet. They abandoned you. That's the choice they made.'

'Possibly.'

The silence between them was suffocating; Chi-Chi let her grip on his hand loosen and break. Her internal conflict visibly surfaced on her face, forcing every inch and crease of her skin to take up a side. She took a deep breath. 'I'm not going to leave until you understand-'

'-understand what?'

'The full range of the lives in front of you.' Kakarot glanced up at her. 'What could come next,' she finished.

0o0o0

Peering out her one-and-only window- she had, surprisingly, been able to find an abandoned pane of glass in the riverbed to fashion a window from- Rayne gazed out at Krillin's rising domicile, insultingly similar to her own. Her own mind was seized in astonishment towards his thick-headedness. I literally couldn't be any clearer, barring turning… whatever this is into a booty call. What does, "Wanna see my house that's a few months travel away" mean to him!? A playdate!? Of all the… Rayne sighed. Calm, happy thoughts…

Krillin's head poked up from behind a wall; the next moment a log slapped down on the top of his house, propelled upwards by one of Krillin's strikes. After floating upwards and adjusting its position, he returned to the ground and sauntered over to Rayne's window. Behind the glass, she frowned. 'What's wrong?' he asked, his voice sounding strangely muffled to Rayne. 'I'm almost done with the house!'

She stared at him for a moment before moving away from the window and walking outside. She took a long look at his house before scowling at him. 'Your house looks exactly like mine,' she said unpleasantly. 'I'm not flattered.'

Krillin gave her a strange look. 'That was the point.'

'The… point?' Rayne swore she could hear the gears turning in her own head. 'What?'

He smiled. 'One second.' He walked around to the back of the house and picked up another tree trunk. 'Watch this!' he declared, as he thrust the tree trunk through the wall of his half-built house and into the side of Rayne's. The distinct clatter of furniture and fixtures being jumbled and ruined from within Rayne's house screeched into Rayne's ears.

She wasn't sure what her expression had been when she had turned to him after this, but she could barely see through the overwhelming amount of red spilling into her vision. 'What,' she seethed, 'the actual… fuck.'

Krillin moved over to the bisecting log and put one hand on it. 'We had to connect the houses at some point, right?' he said warmly, patting the log like it was a faithful pet. 'That…' he turned to her, a small smile on his face, 'was the point, right?'

Rayne took a moment to breathe- yes, breathe- before forcing her face into a blank expression. Without saying a word to Krillin, she turned and entered her house. 'Come help me clean up the mess you made,' her oddly calm voice floated out, 'please.'

Obliging, and making sure to close the door behind him, Krillin followed her in.

0o0o0

Over the course of the night, the flames dipped lower in the sky, returning into the charred remains of the firewood like a genie sucked back into its lamp. The light dancing off the trees and leaves slowly dimmed, progressively shrinking back from illuminating the unknown forest beyond it. The fire positioned between Kakarot and Chi-Chi was nearly dead; nothing separated them except for the errant, reaching lick of heat.

Neither of them said anything for a long while, electing instead to prop their heads on their knees upwards, looking out at the stars spilling across the sky above. A wide and cosmic streak of white and blue bisected the night, comprised of a hundred separate pigments. While lost in visual bewonderment, Kakarot reflected that he had never thought to look up at the night sky at any other time in his life when he had sat next to a similar fire. Strange…

The two of them were content to stare heavenwards for hours- as it was, however, Kakarot lowered his gaze back to Earth and cleared his throat. 'There's something you should tell me, if you can,' he said, 'and something I should tell you.'

Chi-Chi lowered her gaze and tilted her head at him, illuminating her face at an odd angle. 'Yes?'

'Who…' Kakarot screwed his face, clearly searching for a word. 'Who is… Piccolo… King. King Piccolo.'

She blinked at him. 'You… don't know? You don't remember?'

Kakarot sullenly shook his head at her. 'So much of my life is a blur… I've forgotten so much.' he stretched his legs before going still again. 'But that's the name, right? King Piccolo.'

Chi-Chi nodded. 'Yes. He was… evil, in the fullest sense of the word. He cared nothing about the lives of ordinary people. He only sought to exert power over others and exact his wicked will on them.'

'So that's evil?' Kakarot questioned. 'Seeking to control and dominate others?'

'That's part of it, yeah.' Chi-Chi began scratching her side. 'It depends on who you ask… but personally, I see evil as causing discomfort or pain for other people. None of us should be in the business of causing bad things to happen.'

Kakarot glanced at Chi-Chi out of the corner of his eyes. Us… He mulled the word over in his head for a brief period of time before speaking again. 'I asked about King Piccolo because- I think I met him twice before.'

Chi-Chi looked over at him. 'No, that's not possible…' she sat up some, angling her back more vertical to the ground. 'You met him once, and only once, more than three years ago. He died afterward, without a doubt.'

Kakarot took a moment to tighten his features in thought. 'I met someone recently,' he said, 'who matched- or "jogged", more accurately- a fuzzy memory I have. This person was green and had a familiar look about them.'

'How long ago was this?' she asked. 'The most recent encounter, that is.'

He adjusted once more his posture, his eyes drifted up towards the sky again, and he began to recount.

0o0o0

The sun bent low to the ground; spring was making way for summer and the life that came with it. Beauty present in the nascent, blooming flowers was suffocated by a wave of buzzing, unabiding life. Amidst this cacophony, Kakarot rested within the forest, the pod that brought him to this planet not five feet away from him. His eyes idly traced the outlines of the forest growth that still remained on it. On the ground near the pod clumps of leaves and stems cluttered the ground. He was, slowly but surely, freeing his past from forest around it.

A sound curled into the air, driven and delivered by a distant engine. Straightening, Kakarot rose and turned towards the sound's direction. After a few moments of walking, a figure abruptly and rapidly descended from the sky.

The stranger was bedecked in a flowing white cape, which flagged so furiously in the wind that Kakarot could see nothing but that garment. When they landed, the stranger drew their arm forward and back, whipping their cape back behind them. A green-skinned humanoid clad in a purple gi was revealed.

Kakarot was so disillusioned with the state of his own life that he hadn't reacted to any of these developments. It was only the stranger's sibilant voice that shook him out of his stupor. 'Of course,' he said, 'your tail is gone, now…'

The saiyan narrowed his eyes, lucidity returning to him. 'You talk of me like you know me- but I don't know you.' Kakarot felt his muscles clench with tension. 'And how do you know about my tail?' he accused.

The stranger chuckled, drawing out the darkest, most unsettling notes his voice could produce. 'Why, I was the one who removed it, of course.'

A number of things happened then. Kakarot preemptively dodged and rolled away from a blast the stranger had launched without any warning, incinerating a path down the forest. Kakarot closed and rammed a powerful fist into the stranger's jaw. When he turned towards Kakarot, however, he simply gripped Kakarot's hand by his wrist and painfully wrenched it away. 'You were never on par with him,' the stranger said as they forced a pained Kakarot closer to the ground, 'the near-victory you achieved was an ABERRATION!' A knee crashed into Kakarot's back, slamming his body to the ground. Gasping, and before he had even pushed his chest off the ground, Kakarot saw a dangerous glow burgeon into life from above.

'For father.'

At the very instant those words left the stranger's mouth, Kakarot rolled and released a blast of his own. He didn't intend to outright kill his opponent or detonate his attack (as the resulting explosion would have surely killed him) but instead released his ki as physical force. The stranger's face twisted in surprise as he was lifted off the ground and careened high into the sky. Once the green-skinned attacker was far enough away from him, Kakarot shot another ki attack after him, detonating with the stranger's previously prepared attack. Even as a giant explosion bloomed across the sky, the saiyan ducked and ran for the nearest hiding spot nearby, eventually diving into and pressing his back to a ditch hidden by a line of bushes.

The stranger's rage had lasted for longer than Kakarot could remember. After an unknown period of time, Kakarot trusted his ki sense once again and crawled out from his hiding spot. The forest was haphazardly filled by craters- the mark of an aimless, frustrated rage.

During his hiding, while frightened beyond any and all comprehension, Kakarot hadn't even felt six inches of a new appendage shoot out the back of his tailbone.

0o0o0

'He would have killed me,' Kakarot shuddered, pulling his arms closer around him. 'The tone in his voice, the unapproachable finality… is that what it's like?' he asked in a quiet voice. 'When someone is about to kill? Is that how I sound like?'

While Kakarot was consumed in the retelling of his close brush with Piccolo and death, Chi-Chi had remained silent and attentive in respect to his story. When he had finished, however, Chi-Chi struggled to respond to his cutting self-doubt. She glanced over at him briefly before fleeing from his gaze. 'I don't know,' she said after a moment. 'I was never on your bad end, after all…'

The fire crept closer to the ground and finally folded into the charred logs. Faint, glowing embers provided just enough light to see each other in the enveloping darkness. Perturbed, Kakarot turned his head to the side and anxiously ran his hands over his shirt in an effort to straighten it. This methodic sound was just loud enough to stave off a fully fledged silence.

Chi-Chi watched Kakarot for a moment before rising and walking out into the night's darkness. A moment later she returned with a handful of small sticks and branches. Tossing them onto the embers, she nursed the fire back to life.

Kakarot stared into the reborn flames. 'I used to be more prideful. I thought I was powerful, unassailable- but enough time spent hiding or questioning yourself can drive away even the most foolish notions.' He brought his hands to his head and clutched it. 'How can I become a destroyer, sate the burning task buried within me, when faced with such truths? I'm a coward. And a coward could never do…' Kakarot shook his head. 'It doesn't matter. It never mattered, considering where I am now. I've chosen to hide too many times.'

Chi-Chi opened her mouth to reply, but Kakarot continued. 'I tried to train, travel, do anything to change what I saw in myself- but…' he clenched and released his hand, mimicking the motion of catching nothing. 'no. No change.'

'Is this… task, you're referring to, so critical to who you are?' Chi-Chi inquired. 'Can't you be more than that?'

'You tell me,' he said bitterly. 'You seem to know more about me than myself.'

It was a simple, spur-of-the-moment admission for Kakarot to make, but immediately, he realized the implications behind the statement. He blushed and turned his body a bit aways from Chi-Chi. 'Or you claim to, anyway.'

Unseen by Kakarot, Chi-Chi gave him a quizzical look. 'You know, I'm curious about something,' Chi-Chi asked as she scooted closer to Kakarot. 'I think I understand why you didn't compete at the tournament… but then, why did you come at all?'

He turned his head towards her. The fire was shrinking back into nothing; Chi-Chi's face was barely illuminated. 'I meant to find you. I thought you could help parse through what was going on in my head.'

'Did I?'

'In a way. You've… let me release a lot of thoughts that were jumbling around in my head. Sorta like… uh…'

'A release valve?'

'Yes. Like that.'

A glance passed between them just before the fire died a second death.

0o0o0

'Mmhm.' A yawn, then a touch of movement. She noticed that he was awake. 'Krillin? Why-'

'I'm thinking.'

Thoughtful silence descended on the room. 'What now?' he asked.

'We go on living.' A vaguely irritated sound filled the room. 'And you still need to patch the hole in my living room.'

He chuckled. 'Okay, okay…'

0o0o0

Stirring from his sleep. Kakarot dully shimmied away from the object he was pressed up against. I must have fallen asleep against a wall, or maybe a chair-

He opened his eyes. Flush against his chest, Chi-Chi was sound sleep, a small, contented smile on her face. His eyes meandered downwards. Beneath a thick wool blanket, he saw skin- so much skin, but-

I remember. His breath caught in his throat. I remember...

With as much control as he could muster, he pried Chi-Chi away from his body and jumped off the straw mat. He half tip-toed, half sprinted towards the shack door, grabbing his shirt and pants as he walked out.

A moment later, he was outside the shack, panting and fully clothed. Physically and mentally trying to escape what- whatever happened, what was it, I don't know- he ran off into the woods, stumbling over in the dark. This is wrong… this is all wrong!... Kakarot had no idea where he was going-

His foot caught on a gnarled tree root- he tripped and tumbled down the side of a hill, sploshing newly rained-on mud up and down his clothes. When he inevitably came to a messy stop, he carefully and languidly took his time to stand and get a sense of his surroundings.

Not fifty feet from him was the pod, mocking Kakarot with its stoicness. An object utterly unattributable, bland-

Kakarot rose to his feet, feeling the mud slosh against his feet. Tensing his body, he slowly propped his arms out in front of him, positioned as if about to shove someone. A moment later, light began to glow from his palms. He dimly became aware of his own voice rushing to fill the night air.

I chose none of this- I chose all of this- I was given a task- I embraced a task. His nose wrinkled, crinkling with disgust. I hurt this planet- I helped this planet. Useless! All this thought! He felt his legs push deeper into the mud, forced down by the immense pressure gathering in his palms. Every problem- it started here! That man, that house, that girl, with her lies of who I am, what I've done! His mouth twisted, wrapping up and around his teeth like a bind of rope. The forest around him began to shake.

With a final, cathartic yell, he released the blue-ish energy from his palms, pouring out all his anger, frustration, and confusion into a single blast. The energy burned, coalescing into a blast wide enough to fully encompass his body. Heat evaporated the tears from his face, and gradually, he began to notice the forest start to catch on fire all around him. I don't care! I don't care about anything!

The pod was enveloped by the blast, completely obscuring it from Kakarot's sight, but judging from the resistance he felt, he knew it was still there. 'HAAAH!' He pushed more energy out of him, twisting his feet deeper into the mud, but still, he felt a pressure pushing back on his attack.

Futility start to boil up within him, threatening to seize every muscle and ounce of determination that was keeping his attack afloat. Useless! Hider, Coward, Weakling! Energy was leaving him in droves as his mind rehearsed the doubt and failure that plagued him over and over and over again. This… is pointless. I'm trapped here… His muscles burned, his body was in agony- I'll never understand… no matter how hard I push.

... but that doesn't matter. A wild, reckless jolt of adrenaline shot through him, as if given to him by some cosmic force. Will… is everything! His mind roared with newly discovered resolve. AND MY WILL WON'T BE DENIED! 'HRAAAAAAAAAH!' A concentrated ring of energy swelled and passed through the blast, speeding towards the pod. The extra energy made contact with the object- and Kakarot felt a crumple, then total collapse, of any resistance to his attack. The forest beyond was overshadowed and consumed by bright blue light- his arms dropped to the ground as an entire section of forest unraveled before his eyes, returning to the dust from whence it came. When the sound and fury finally expired into the quiet night air, there was no sign of… anything. The pod was utterly destroyed. It's… gone. It's actually gone.

Calming himself, Kakarot slowed his breathing, letting his exhaustion pull him closer to the ground. He remembered where he was- he took one look back in the direction he had come, up and over the hill he had slid down. One last glimpse at a way forward that was given to him, mercifully and graciously, by someone who sought to help him.

But it wasn't his way. He knew- deep down in the core of his being- that taking up a future like that would irreversibly alter who he was. And he wasn't prepared for such a change.

Shuddering from the amount of energy he had spent, Kakarot stumbled down another path.

0o0o0

In a darkened cockpit, far out in the deep recesses of space, a soft red glow began to blink on-and-off. The inhabitant, formerly in a coma-like state, began to move as puffs of visible air particles began to spray into the cockpit's small chamber. Groggily, this person leaned over to his left, tapping a few times into a display. His face shifted from disinterest, to confusion, to dissatisfaction.

After a moment, he leaned back against his seat, his wild, long spiky black hair acting more like a cushion than the actual seat. He scratched at his thick, oval-plated armor while his eyes darted to distant thoughts. The cockpit was silent save for the steady wheeze of some sort of ventilation system.

Stretching his neck, the person leaned forward once more, dragging their finger across the screen from earlier and typing in a quick string of numbers. He paused for another moment, then tapped a finger to the display one more time, bringing about a dimming of the cockpit's lights and the growing whine of the machinery around him. Air particles began to filter into the cockpit once more; he began to feel sleepy. Just before he closed his eyes, an emotionless, computerized voice rumbled. 'SYSTEM TARGET CHANGED. COURSE CORRECTED.'

Satisfied, Raditz drifted into a contented sleep.


A/N: And that's… the real ending of Sins of the Father. As arcs go, this one was a long one; 9 chapters to bring about the end of DB. Crazy. While we may be at the end of DB, we're actually not quite at the end of this story's first (and probably 1 of 3) major story chunk. When the next arc, Endgame, wraps up, I'll talk about that a bit more. Hope you've enjoyed the ride so far and are looking forward to all the crazy fun stuff ahead!

Now, if you're strictly a story reader, you can stop reading here. I've decided that this is a good point for me to talk about some meta stuff with everyone, such as my rationale for some of the big story developments, to explain/give context to how I've approached this story so far. Proceed at your own immersion breaking risk.

So what I'm talking about is:

1) Rayne's purpose as an OC character (long).

2) And the (maybe unexpected?) pairing between Krillin and Rayne (longer).

You, the reader, may be wondering why Krillin isn't pairing with his traditional and canon love interest, Eighteen. "A dirty OC?", you may be thinking. "That's who you paired Krillin with?" To explain why this happened, I feel that I need to explain my motivations for creating and having Rayne around as a character.

Rayne was originally conceived as 1) a mechanism to get Chi-Chi involved in Dragon Ball as a main character and 2) a main female fighter, considering the dearth of them in DB and DBZ in general.

The way I figured it, unless Chi-Chi is roped into a common cause with Rayne and the others in the beginning, there's no reason for her to tag along for the entire rest of DB, nor have the early interactions with Kakarot I wanted to have happen. Helping out in the beginning gets her into Turtle training, and with that, her involvement in the rest of the story comes naturally. Rayne brings her into the fold a bit more easily (in my opinion) and also adds another female fighter in the process. Two birds, one stone.

I hadn't planned that Krillin and Rayne would be a pairing when I started this story. I did have a vague idea of how Kakarot was going to affect the progression of the Red Ribbon Army (in other words affect the development of android 17/18 somehow), but it wasn't until the middle of the Escalation Arc did I conceptualize what that change was going to be. Being as vague as possible, with the direction the Red Ribbon Army is going in right now, Eighteen won't be the 'same' Eighteen she was in canon, if she even comes into existence at all. It amounts to a long-running change rippling through the universe, stemming from Kakarot being Kakarot, not Goku.

At the end of the day, I liked writing scenes between Krillin and Rayne, and knowing that 18 was functionally unavailable, I kept running in that direction.

If you're not satisfied with this explanation, that's perfectly okay, but stuff like this ^^^ is hard to express in the text and I felt the need to provide some context to any long-time readers. If you have any and all thoughts about ANY of this, please share it with me with a review. Now that we've wrapped up a coherent chunk of the story, I want to hear your thoughts about what you liked, didn't like, about anything that comes to mind when thinking about this fic. It'll give me good direction as to what to try and replicate and what not to going forward in the story. As always, thank you so much for the support. We've got a long way to go but I'm committed to getting this done.

Alright, on to the reviews!

Reviews:

LWexe: I cannot believe it either. We out, DB!

Luke: Nice to hear some appreciation for a good ol' fashioned narrative tease.

TC9078 (who kindly padded my review count): I must have read this review ten times front-to-back without figuring out how to respond to it. All I can say is that your praise leaves me wordless. It means a lot to me to see people are that impressed by my work. When I set out doing this I had never written a long-form piece of fiction before; I just had a dream of living up to some of the sprawling epics in the DBZ fandom, like Break Through the Limit and Bringer of Death, that I came to love over the years. Thank you for sharing your (Such kind thoughts)!

Guest: Turns out they had a nice, calm discussion before the tournament…

OneofTen: As much as the original? Holy moley…