Disclaimer: I don't own dbz.
TW: Very vivid depictions of self harm, murder, gore, and less vivid depictions of rape. Discussion of psychopathy, schizophrenia, and very violent intrusive thoughts. Not for the faint hearted.
Unraveled
Chapter One: Urges
Fuck. He couldn't stop shaking. The bloodlust, the constant desire to slaughter anything and everything that moved that never ceased to occupy his thoughts, he could handle that, the tremors however? He could not. It was driving him mad; it wasn't just a simple matter of his hands trembling a bit, no no, this was full body spasms that felt more like demonic possessions that tremors. He curled up and began to immerse himself in his own thoughts, to reflect on that which had brought him here, mainly as a method of distraction from his current standing rather than as an actual tool of growth, but who gave a fuck the intent he needed to lose himself in anything but this. And so he thought, thought back to when he had first realized that something wasn't right, that something in his psyche had been permanently damaged.
Gohan had never been like his father. Sure they were practically carbon copies of one another in terms of physical appearance, and up until the age of 4 he would even go so far as to say their personalities were very similar: that is, kind hearted, loving, gentle, forgiving, merciful, and even pacifistic. Gohan hated that word. It felt bitter now, and he wasn't even saying it out loud, but just the thought of the concept that the word represented made him blanch. It should have been genetically impossible for a saiyan, especially a full blooded one like Goku, to be anything remotely pacifistic. The concept shouldn't have even had meaning to them, but then again, traumatic brain injuries are quite the anomaly, and in all honesty the brain itself was something that had always interested Gohan. Consciousness, feeling, desires, thoughts, every single thing that made existence and reality, well, real, all stemmed from the brain. And yet, when hit with just the right amount of pressure in just the right spot, well, entire realities could change. Goku was not the cold blooded killing machine that thousand of years of evolution and genetics had molded his race to be, all because of a little pressure.
'So why the fuck was I like that at first,' Gohan thought, 'how could I have ever been someone who desired mercy for all and had martial arts as the last thing on his mind. It doesn't. make. sense' Gohan began to wonder if there was perhaps some sort of head injury as an infant he had suffered that had been hidden from him, maybe Goku had tripped while carrying Gohan on his shoulders and didn't have the gall to tell Chi-Chi. Gohan chuckled. 'These symptoms are really getting to me, can't even think straight at this point.' He obviously understood that personality was molded more so by ones' environment rather than solely genetics. Well… thats howa human's personality might manifest. In any case, his softness as a child was most likely due to a lack of neural development combined with being exposed to a rather overbearing personality of his father he determined.
But then, as the brain matured, and as the genetics responsible for personality began to actually reach the capacity to have some sway over him, he began to change. 'Oh, that and my father having little to no influence over me from that point forward, since, you know, he wasn't there,' god damn he was bitter. He wasn't wrong sure, but he was bitter. The lack of Goku influence in his life combined with strong saiyan genetics combined with the fact he was forced to fight to literally maintain his life for years and years caused a shift. Bouts of anger, explosive power that sought to destroy and dominate everything in its path should have been the first sign.
4 year olds shouldn't get that angry. They shouldn't. Get mad and throw temper tantrums? Sure why not. Get mad enough to be willing to take the life of another sentient being? Most definitely not normal.
But even then, if it stopped there he probably would have been okay. Maybe not okay, but certainly at a more manageable position than the one he found himself in now. At the very least he would have delayed it. Delayed becoming a fucking monster. He didn't necessarily think of himself as that. After all, people who rape and murder often times view themselves as preforming zero wrong in their own minds. 'God damn sociopathy.' He doubted he was one in all honesty, given his emotions ran absolutely rampant at times, but he had little empathy at this point. Saiyan blood having to fight to exist for millenia would indeed necessitate such a suppression of empathy.
But no no, back to the topic, it wasn't his father's absence or his genetics or even his constantly being forced to fight and kill at such a young age that caused his current state. The straw that broke the saiyan's back was the transformation. 'That damn transformation,' he choked out as his squeezed his fist hard enough to let his nails seep into the bullet proof flesh of his palm. He squeezed harder, praying it would maybe satiate the urge. Skin ripped open and flesh tore to reveal the epidermis, fat, and muscle as blood poured. 'Bloody hands, how fucking ironic,' Gohan had just inflicted what most would consider hospitilization level damage onto himself, but he knew he'd be fine in 20 minutes tops. He stared at his palms, wiggling his fingers as he watched the tendons and ligaments twitch with each movement. Fascinated, self inflicted harm never ceased to amaze him. Pushing himself to the limits of what he could tolerate, what he could heal from, what he could learn.
Super Saiyan 2 saved his life, saved many lives, but in the end the number of lives it would cost might end up far outweighing those which it saved. Gohan had always had that part of him that he was now grappling with, the part that demanded bloodshed, but he kept it at bay. But fuck, he couldn't let Cell win, he couldn't let all of his friends die and every individual on Earth suffer. No, he had to let it go. 16 had told him to drop his restraints. Had told him to let it all go. And he had. His hesitancy wasn't because he feared what he himself would do in that state, but it was because he feared what that state would do to he himself. Releasing his guard and letting the bloodlust have full unhindered control over his mind and body had its consequences. Maybe they weren't super noticeable at first, a bit of shouting at his mother and a bit moodier here and there, all of which could easily be explained away with simple words such as "puberty" and "grief."
It was when he started having...urges…that he realized something was definitely not right with him. He had figured that releasing the part of him locked away could easily be remedied by simply locking it back up. 'You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube though now can you,' he never could have expected it to have this drastic an effect though.
He first started having vivid fantasies of murder when he was 13. Idealizing taking another's life, watching their eyes go dim and feeling their bodies go still. It was so fucking fascinating. Years and years of life, memories, bonds, relationships, parties, highs and lows, all erased before his eyes. The power. God. 'Saiyans are violent by design, and programming always finds a way to shine through I suppose.'
He calmed himself down by saying he only would get satisfaction out of killing those who deserved it. What a silly concept. Who decides who deserves what punishment and how? Very arbitrary and naive of him. But it helped. Child rapists, domestic terrorists, and names of murderers he would hear reported on the news, these were the individuals he would get joy out of killing. His mother would gasp and had a look of indignant anger and even subtle fear and sadness on her face as she listened to the solemn news anchor go on and on, but never a look of bloodshed. And although Gohan didn't particularly care what other people did when it didn't affect him, using the criminality of others as a means to disguise and justify his own budding psychopathy was a nice tactic.
He would spend hours upon hours lying at awake at night, going over in excruciating detail exactly how he would kill these people he heard about. How he would take them apart bit by bit and relish in their screams as he gave them their penance. He was a god. He was the strongest on this planet by far and the second closest probably wouldn't give a shit if he murdered anyway. So at the end of the day, he could walk right up to someone in broad daylight, kill them, and no one could do a damn. thing. about. it.
The thoughts still terrified him at the time, and he began to loathe himself. Or, well, a part of him loathed the other part of him. But his 13 year old brain was struggling to grasp the discrepancy, that there was a split within his psyche, two halves battling for control over one another. And it was when the fantasies shifted to family, friends, and loved ones, when the dark half began to win out, that he could no longer handle feeling like a monster and a threat. Cell's accusation towards him of being more than a mere boy, but a monster rang in his head over and over again like clockwork. One night when he was in his room having just experienced a thought of going downstair and slaughtering his mother in her sleep, he broke. The thoughts weren't even the worst part, it was the pleasure he was getting out of them, the euphoric elation at the idea of killing.
He formed a dagger of ki stemming from his hands and stared at himself in the mirror. Heavy sobs wracked his body and made him tremble. He loved his mother so much, and yet he dared to imagine killing the woman who had nurtured and raised him since birth. He looked at himself and saw an animal staring back, a creature unworthy of life, one who made him sick to his stomach. He deserved to be punished for these thoughts he was having, he had to be, it would make him feel so much better if he gave himself what he deserved. He brought the ki to his upper arm and slowly slashed, pushing hard into his arm and squeezing his eyes tightly shut. He turned his body to stare at his handiwork in the mirror and let out a gasp of shock.
Bone, white as snow and smooth, stared back. No blood flowed as the heat from the ki had cauterized the cut giving Gohan a very clear picture of his wound. He had sliced well past his bicep muscle and tore every tendon and ligament connecting the bicep to the tricep. He smiled and started laughing as his arm hung limply at his side. "Holy shit. I nearly amputated my god damn arm," he said through giggles. It felt good to hurt. The adrenaline combined with the feeling of justice being served made for a perfect new pastime. Plus, it helped deal with his urges for a while. But he knew it wasn't a permanent solution. He knew the inevitable was coming, and it would be coming soon.
It had been so god damn easy. The Mountain District Maniac had brutally killed and raped 6, yes in that order, one of which was a close family friend of the Sons. While Chi Chi and Gohan were both livid that there was a sick monster on the loose, Gohan's anger arose more from jealousy than anything. Someone out there got to fulfill their violent urges and get away with it, and they didn't even have an infinitesimal fraction of his power. This had to be the one, had to be his first. He couldn't take it any longer, the drive to kill was at an all time high, each day his subconscious screamed at him every time he so much as heard a living thing breathe to rip, tear, kill, and he needed to let loose before he hurt someone. 'Ha, thats funny, kill someone before you hurt someone, quite impeccable logic there Gohan.' He was determined to finally feel what he knew a fantasy could never offer.
It hadn't even taken that long. 4 hours going through public records databases for everyone residing in a 100 mile radius of the Mountain district until he had compiled a list of those who matched the description of the maniac. Most likely candidate was one 48 year old Jacob Fitzpatrick, civil engineer who had mysteriously lost his wife twenty years back in an unsolved homicide. 'Wow, great detective work mount pazou police, you really tried your best on that one.' But, he still had 30 or so others he needed to consider as very likely possibilities as well. 'Man fuck this,' and with that Gohan blasted out of his bedroom at 3:48 AM to go do some more manual boots on the ground detective work.
He went straight to Fitzpatrick's address, 'Wow the fucker isn't home, wonder what hes up to.' Gohan closed his eyes and concentrated for any ki signatures in the area, and found one a couple miles west. 'Fuck this is it, thats gotta be him.' Not ten seconds later Gohan was on the scene. He slowly levitated down and silently landed on the forested ground 40 feet or so in front of the maniac. 'Well, I'm assuming hes the maniac at least, after all only sick fucks stroll around in the forest at 4AM,' he smiled at the implication.
God the dude was disheveled. Dirty, raggedy clothes, loud as hell too as he stamped towards the hidden Gohan. 'How is this guy intelligent enough to evade detection by police,' Gohan was genuinely annoyed with the inadequacy of the police department here. Gohan's brain formed an idea, his first had to be special after all, why not have a bit of fun with it?
"Excuse me, is anyone out there" he tentatively said in his best nervous teen voice he could muster, "oh thank goodness I found you sir you have to help me. I've completely lost my way, I've been away from home since sunset my mother must be worried sick by now, do you think you could help navigate me back?"
Fitzpatrick wasn't an idiot. Deranged and psychotic most definitively, but he was not stupid. A boy portraying the perfect victim just waltzing up to him in the middle of his trek to a nearby families dwelling at this ungodly hour, something wasn't right. His heart rate immediately skyrocketed as a million possibilities raced through his head. 'Sting operation? No no that's silly this isn't dateline they wouldn't use a kid as bait for a suspected murderer. Vigilante, family member of one of his victims out for revenge? Maybe…but why didn't he just blindside him, why give away his position and only tactical advantage?'
Fitzpatrick slowly glided his hand to his waistband, a subtle and invisible move in the darkness that covered them but one that would certainly help him out if shit got messy. He wasn't really a gun kinda guy, more of a knives and bludgeoner type of guy, but he understood the necessity in having a fallback plan. Walking miles to a victims house left little trail for police to follow, lack of weaponry residue made it even harder, but in the event someone overpowers him or god forbid catches him off guard, his pistol would ensure things played out alright. No need to worry about noise he reasoned, too secluded.
'God this kid standing there with that goofy ass smile as if I'm his guardian angel is creeping me the fuck out. Why the hell isn't he scared, who isn't scared of a homeless looking guy prowling the woods in the middle of the night.' Around 10 seconds had passed, he had to say something at this point. And, since he couldn't think of any alternative explanation for this kids' presence except incredible luck on his part, he decided to play along. "Goodness gracious kid!" he stepped back and put his hand over his chest, "you nearly gave me a heart attack, thought you might have been some lunatic. Wow, I wont lie I don't see too many people out here when I go on these walks to clear my head. I live just up there ya see," he pointed to a random direction, "Whew, well yeah I'd be happy to help direct you back to home. Ya know I'm a local, so I can get ya wherever you need to be," he said with a triumphant smile.
The creepy fucker's smile just grew, especially when I mentioned lunatics. "Haha I won't lie sir you startled me too, what with that criminal on the loose and all," he lowered his voice on the criminal part, as if someone might be listening to them. "And thank you so so much, I don't think I could be able to find my way home without some assistance even in daylight! I live at 1532 Pazou Road."
"Okay! Well you're in luck I know a buddy that lives on that stretch of land, and we actually aren't too far from it if you'd believe it," he took on more of a somber tone, "It is certainly a dangerous time to get lost, that sick bastard makes my blood boil, I got kids ya see, can't even imagine that sick fucker getting his hands on them."
Just when he thought the kid couldn't get any creepier his smile got even bigger than before! 'God maybe I should just kill him now something ain't right with this.'
"Let me tell you something sir, I completely agree, my mom and I live alone-" 'Wow way to really protect yourself from potential predators dumbass' Fitzpatrick thought. "-and so I completely get being livid at the thought of that monster. In fact, I got so fed up with the poor performance of the police I decided to take matters into my own hands! I did a little bit of detective work of my own, examining thousands of pages of public records for this area looking for something, anything, that might lead me to the bastard."
Fitzpatrick's blood ran cold at that. 'Fuck fuck fuck. This can't be a coincidence. Does the kid know? Fuck calm down calm down there's no way he knows.' "Oh is that right? Well good on you for taking matters into your own hands lad, ya know lemme tell ya I'd be happy to help you out sometime, say, what do you have so far, any leads?" He slowly pulled his pistol out of his waistband, preparing to put a stop to this supernatural level bullshit.
The boy began walking towards him. "A couple of leads, only one main suspect. I wasn't actually sure at all it was him, was mainly just a suspicious hunch, but when he pretended to know a completely made up address to lure a young child to follow him, well, I just knew at that point he had to be the one," the boy said matter of factly.
Fitzpatrick stroked his chin as if deep in thought. "I see. Well, you're smart kid, smart enough to track me down and figure me out, I'll give you that much, did a hell of a lot better than the police ever coulda." The boy's shit-eating grin never faded. Fitzpatrick began to get angry, "But you're also so dreadfully stupid. Approaching a killer in the middle of the woods alone, someone who preys on boys like you. A gazelle approaching a lion and then telling him she knows he killed her family. Do you realize how fucking stupid that is. Im gonna enjoy you ya know that, die knowing your mother will never know the fate you suffered." That was when he pulled out the pistol and fired 4 times.
On the fourth time he realized there was no gun, was no trigger he was pulling, just air and that boy's cheeky ass grin. "HAHA, okay that was funny, that badass mantra and final speech just to fail like that. You are utterly powerless against me, die knowing you had no hope of ever surviving this encounter. Ya know we're alike you and I, we both have similar desires, these taboo thoughts that society has forced us to repress until they fester and posses us to do terrible things. No one will question how you died, I suppose I could make it look like a suicide, but I don't think it would matter. Who would care that a maniac who killed so many suddenly was found dead. Don't worry about the police potentially not figuring it out I'll be sure to plant plenty of evidence of your involvement at your house once I'm done here."
Fitzpatrick was pale as a ghost, he wasn't stupid, he wasnt. He knew this was it. Fate had finally caught up to him. God had sent a demon to take him down. The gun disappearing like that, this boy wasn't human. But that wouldnt stop him from trying to reason with him. "Okay look-," he didn't even see the boy move, in fact he was still standing there with that grin. But something happened to his arm, it stung, there was a tingling sensation, like pins and needles, it began to grow to extreme levels to the point where he reached over with his other arm to feel it but missed. 'How the fuck did I miss my own arm what?' Then he realized, there was no arm, just a stump at the shoulder. The boy had completely ripped it out of socket and off his body from the shoulder girdle.
Then the pain hit. The shock was there, but it was dulled now that he actually realized what had happened. The blood was pouring like a faucet and his entire nervous system was on fire as he screamed. He should at least try to run right? That was when he realized. His legs. Gone at the hip joint. No running.
Gohan looked down at him. Man this was better than he thought, tearing his enemy apart limb from limb, the power was overwhelmingly stimulating. This was the best feeling he had ever experienced, giving in to his birthright of inflicting pain. "Lemme tell you something," he said over the man's screams and sobs, "I personally take no issue with what you did, and it is for that exact reason, not for some weird twisted sense of justice, that I do this. The strong live, they prevail and crush the weak, doing whatever they want to them. And whatever happens to them they deserve it, because at the end of the day it could've been prevented had they been stronger, more proficient. I believe you had a right to rape and murder all those people because you were stronger and smarter and wanted to just as much as I have a right to do this." And with that he raised up his palm and his smile grew to magnanimous proportions as he incinerated the sick man who screamed sickly. And just like that, the Mount Pazou Maniac was no more. Well...this maniac was no more at least.
Gohan whistled as he relished the orgasmic climax of finally giving in. It was like the weight of the world, of his entire being, had finally been lifted. It was liberating, freeing. He strolled back to his house, no need to fly, gotta enjoy the moment. He walked into his house at around 7, his mother up and about already preparing breakfast. This was the first time in a while Gohan had no violent urge towards her or anyone. He was at peace for now, he was happy.
"Hey mom!" he said loudly and excitedly.
Chi-Chi nearly dropped the pan she was holding. "Good god Gohan you nearly killed me." Then her shock shifted to motherly concern at the realization her son had been outside this early, "You can't be out and about training this early it cant be healthy. Oh come here baby," she pulled him into a hug, "Happy birthday sweetheart."
Gohan smiled, 14 was going to be a good year for him.
AN: OKAY OKAY OKAY I am literally so excited that I wrote this. I love fanfic and honestly have toyed around with the idea of writing one for years. I have so many cool ideas for stuff, and I finally just decided to put one down into words! Lemme know what you think, all reviews welcome and appreciated! Constructive criticism encouraged! The whole idea of not just a dark edgy gohan, but a twisted evil psychotic one has always been interesting to me. And, I don't think I've ever seen anyone go with an idea like this before in all honesty. But man I spent a couple hours on this, and the time just FLEW by this is great I love this ahhh. I have no clue if this is gonna be a one-shot. I have some tentative ideas about where to take this, possibly introducing some sort of Gh/Vi relationship and some HS stuff where gohan just murders people on the side. Who knows…
-OG_POW3R 3
