Chapter 11
Into the Night
His father had always told him 'be smarter'.
His mother had always told him 'everything he says is a lie.'
And so Vejita couldn't understand, looking back on it, through bleary eyes as he drifted into space and fell into his mind, why he had never put those two together. Why he had never looked around at everything and realized the end game. Why he hadn't been smart enough to realize that Frieza had been lying.
Why he hadn't been strong enough to protect his father.
Why he had trusted.
No matter what he did, no matter how hard he had tried, Frieza had used him.
These days were quiet. Solemn. Dazed and dull and confused.
Vejita's mind had been shut off and was now operating automatically, mechanically, with no real thought and no real sensation. A little ghost, a tiny apparition, a small phantom, wandering about, lost and alone in the mist.
Every so often though, sometimes during a quiet moment, a wave of wrath would rise up, burning against the nothingness. The feeling of being stabbed in the back. Nothing had ever hurt more, nothing had ever blazed up the way that fury did, not even when he had stepped onto the ship that very first time.
Vejita had been lying in bed for days now, on his side and staring away at nothing, eyes distant and unfocused, tail hanging limply behind him, hand up beside his face and feeling so utterly lost.
Chichi spent the time sitting in front of the child, her legs hanging off the bed, twisted at the waist and reaching down, resting her palm atop Vejita's pale forehead and smoothing back his hair.
Couldn't feel her, she knew, couldn't sense the mother trying to comfort him, but it at least gave her some tiny sense of comfort, warded off her own anxiety to just sit there and try to offer silent support to a small child. Goten wasn't here to fuss over, Gohan was grown, and Goten was growing up so fast that soon he wouldn't need her anymore, either.
She had been meant to care for things, perhaps, and this child was absolutely no exception.
Even if he couldn't feel her fingers through his hair, she stayed with him all the same.
Dull pangs of hunger against the numbness. No appetite. Vejita just lied there, and ran the words over and over again in his mind.
A meteor.
How stupid, how brazen, how audacious, how insulting.
To think that Vejita would ever believe that a meteor had destroyed his home. To think that Frieza had had the nerve to even let those words leave his mouth. To think that the memory of his father, his kingdom, his planet, his people, was to forever be desecrated by saying that they could have been destroyed by a hunk of space rock.
His father—not his father.
Not the king.
His father was brilliant, his father was powerful, his father was wise, his father was resourceful, his father was cunning, his father was king. King, and kings didn't get destroyed by meteors. Kings got destroyed by tyrants, and it had never once been a doubt in Vejita's mind that Frieza had been the culprit, not for one second.
His father was—
A start.
A jolt in his chest, an awful, clenching pain, a loss of his breath, a hammer of his pulse, a whoosh in his ears, a pound of blood in his head, as the child stopped in mid-thought and was forced to sit there and remind himself that, no, it wasn't 'father was'.
It was 'father had been.'
Had been.
His father had been king.
Wasn't, anymore. Wasn't anything anymore.
His father was dead, and that was all.
Not so long ago, Chichi had watched as the king had wrapped Vejita up in his tail to cart him along down the halls and into court. His father had carried him on his shoulders, both literally and figuratively. His father had been the reason for everything, the motive behind the madness, the engine in the machine, the light in the endless night, the only thing in the entire universe that had ever made Vejita feel safe.
Love.
Gone.
No one here now.
The days dragged, and Chichi wished more than anything that she could have knelt before this child, this baby, that she could have put her hands on his shoulders, and that she could have said to him that it wasn't his fault. That he hadn't done anything wrong, that he hadn't caused it, that he hadn't brought about his planet's demise.
She had already done that once before, when she had consoled a grieving Gohan.
That it wasn't the fault of the child that the father was gone.
Vejita would never understand that.
Every waking minute was spent looking over every single thing he had done since the day he had first met Frieza, and wondering what he could have done differently. How he could have changed it, how he could have altered it, how he could have saved everyone like he was supposed to.
Frieza was a liar, yes, Vejita knew that, but all the same Vejita wondered what he had done so wrong that Frieza had punished him in this manner.
Why.
Just wanted to know why.
Nappa came in and out of Vejita's room to check on him, but didn't seem to have the heart to urge Vejita to move, to eat, and eventually just wandered back out. Raditz would come in, look around, swallow, and then walk right back out.
Zarbon came in sometimes, too, and those were the only times Vejita came out of his state of catatonia for a brief second, and only then to feel rage. A lift of his head, a surge of heat, a crinkle of his nose as the urge to snarl reared. But it extinguished like everything else, couldn't take hold, couldn't fire, and after a moment Vejita would just heavily drop his head back down and his eyes would lose focus and the numbness returned.
Zarbon almost seemed disappointed, and would just leave without a word like all the others.
Seven days after the 'meteor' had destroyed the only reason Vejita had for getting out bed, Nappa had finally gathered up his resolve and came inside the room with a tray stacked with food. The smell of it made Vejita's stomach twist with hunger, but he didn't move, wouldn't budge, and didn't really come around from that mist.
"Come eat."
Vejita didn't move.
Nappa set the tray down, came over, and grabbed Vejita's arm to gently shake it.
"Get up. Come on. You can't... Get up."
Silence and stillness.
Vejita didn't move, didn't speak, and it was clear that stressed Nappa was very close to some breaking point, for the next shake he gave the child was less gentle.
"I said eat. Now. Get up!"
When Vejita didn't stir, Nappa took a great breath, and his face suddenly twisted with as much fury as Vejita felt in those odd moments when the mist cleared.
For the very first time, Nappa took charge and commanded the child, Nappa used his position as the adult, as the guardian, and stalked forward with a snarl. Chichi was a bit startled when Nappa tangled his fingers in Vejita's hair, yanked him forcibly upright, sat him up on the bed, and said, with every bit of command he possessed, "Eat. Now. This is not a request."
Vejita somehow lifted his head to look up at Nappa, and asked, so despondently, "Why?"
A short fall of Nappa's face.
Again, Nappa ordered, "Eat."
Nappa didn't answer the question, and Chichi assumed that it was simply because Nappa had no answer. Nappa didn't know why they should carry on, didn't know what the point was, didn't know why they were even bothering.
Why continue living when everyone else was dead?
Nappa carried on then for the child, for his prince, and couldn't come up with a reason for Vejita to trek on. There seemed to be nothing waiting for them, and so Nappa distracted himself by bringing over the food and forcibly making Vejita eat.
Later on that night, when Nappa was gone, Vejita suddenly thought he smelled his father, and it made his face twist and his heart race, and he leapt up and ran into the bathroom and vomited.
Everything hurt.
Nine days.
Raditz and Nappa sat together in Vejita's room, after banding together that day to force Vejita to eat. Vejita sat there now on the edge of the bed, legs dangling off and tail limp and head hanging.
Words came in and out, as Nappa and Raditz murmured to each other in hushed tones, their faces sullen and their shoulders slumped.
Raditz was fidgeting helplessly, pacing, shuffling, unable to sit still, as if he were desperately trying to contain something.
Didn't take long to figure out what Raditz was clearly torn about doing; Vejita happened to lift his blank eyes, and Raditz very suddenly came forward.
Their eyes locked, but only one of them was seeing.
Raditz looked the child over, and with every second his face seemed to fall a little more, his eyes flitted over Vejita's face, his breathing quickened, and he swallowed. And then Raditz fell down to one knee, bowed his head, and placed a hand over his breast.
Vejita just stared off at the wall above Raditz' head, blankly, and didn't acknowledge him.
At least, that was, until Raditz suddenly said, lowly, "My king."
Chichi inhaled so sharply that it was nearly a gasp, because somehow that just hadn't occurred to her.
King.
That was right. It struck Chichi, fast and hard. Vejita wasn't the prince anymore. The king had fallen, the king was dead, Vejita's father had passed, and that meant that this tiny little child upon the bed was now the king of the Saiyans.
Nappa looked so alarmed, bristled out and eyes wide, and Chichi didn't understand at first why, because what Raditz had said was true. Vejita was king, now.
Vejita might have liked Raditz more, but it was truly Nappa who understood Vejita's mind, if only perhaps because he had known Vejita's mother, and it was quickly clear why Nappa looked panicked.
King?
Raditz had unwittingly unleashed the floodgates of hell in Vejita, had woken him up better than anything else could have, had awoken the sleeping dragon.
King.
Vejita's eyes cleared up for the first time in days, and he lowered his gaze to kneeling Raditz, tail coming out of its stillness of its own accord and suddenly lashing around.
His father was the king.
Fury.
It surprised Chichi, when Vejita let loose a snarl of anger and burst to life so quickly that it had nearly been impossible to see him, and the next thing Chichi knew Vejita had pushed off of the bed and kicked Raditz in the face.
A loud thud, as Raditz was thrown back into the wall. A grunt of pain.
There was no way she knew to describe what Vejita was feeling then. Every kind of anger, every kind of betrayal, every kind of hurt, every kind of hate. Everything, and nothing.
Felt nothing.
He was nothing, a king least of all.
Vejita suddenly lunged forward, and it was quite clear that he very much intended to cause as much harm to Raditz as possible, it was so easy to see, and that was why Nappa leapt in and intervened. Nappa snatched Vejita up in a second, tried so hard to wrangle a thrashing child stronger than he was, and Raditz just sat there on the floor against the wall and looked so confused.
A low, dangerous threat from the child.
"Don't ever call me that again! My father is king!"
Raditz just stared at Vejita, who struggled to free himself from Nappa's arms to murder Raditz, even if he didn't really know why he wanted to.
Why he was so angry.
It was only because Vejita was so weak and lost and hurt and numb that Nappa was able to contain him, and Raditz should have counted his blessings for that, for he escaped death by a thread then.
One more, Vejita hissed, "My father is king," and then, just as randomly as it had started, Vejita's anger died down, and he fell lax and limp in Nappa's arms. Didn't struggle anymore, didn't try to lunge at Raditz. Exhaustion crept up, and all he wanted to do then was go to sleep.
Nappa clung tightly to Vejita yet, and leaned down to whisper, now that Vejita had calmed, "Why are you so angry? It is true."
It wasn't true.
He wasn't king. No one had ever officially made that decision, no one had sworn him in, no one had declared him king, no one had placed his father's ceremonial crown upon his head, no one had placed his father's crest around his neck, no one had ordered him to sit down upon his father's throne.
Wasn't right.
His father was king.
Vejita's hand reached up then, and fell upon his breast, as he tried to remember the feel of his father's familial crest. But he couldn't, and so Vejita just opened his mouth, and whispered, "I'm not king. I'll never be king. Everything's gone. My father was king, and always will be."
Zarbon had been right all along.
Zarbon had known all along, had always known. Vejita had just been too blind to ever realize that Zarbon was speaking the truth.
With that, Vejita spoke no more.
Everything shut down, as despondent Vejita twisted in Nappa's arms to bury his face in Nappa's chest. Didn't even realize he was doing it, for no longer was he in control of or aware of his actions. Nappa, for his part, held the child close and whispered under his breath.
What Nappa said, Chichi would never know, because Vejita didn't comprehend the words.
Night once more veiled him.
More days passed.
Life seemed so desperately pointless.
And then, abruptly, life seemed to want to drag Vejita back into it, whether he wanted to be there or not.
Two weeks after the news of the destruction, Frieza apparently decided that the mourning period was over. Out of the blue, Vejita's door burst open and Zarbon marched in. Vejita was lying on his side, as always, and Zarbon looked him over quickly, saw his awful state, and his face seemed to soften a bit as he said, not so harshly, "Get up."
Vejita didn't, anymore than he had willingly gotten up for Nappa.
A crinkle of Zarbon's brow, but as was so often the case, Zarbon remained gentle with Vejita, and said once more, "Get up."
Vejita rolled over, turning his back to Zarbon, and pulled the blanket over his head.
Wanted everyone to go away.
He tested Zarbon's patience that time.
Zarbon, like Nappa, reached out, ripped the blanket off, and grabbed the child by the hair, yanking him upright and out of bed. Vejita stumbled, but couldn't fall, for Zarbon's iron hand kept him up. There was a jerk and a pull, and Zarbon quite literally dragged the child down the hall.
A blur.
Vejita regained some semblance of clarity when Zarbon tossed him down onto a cold floor, but only because his nose had cracked into it and the pain woke him up a little.
Zarbon said, again, "Get up."
And for the first time in quite a long while, Chichi snapped and uselessly lashed out at memories. She stalked forward, shoved Zarbon's chest, and cried, so shrilly that her voice cracked, 'Stop it! He's just a baby!'
Zarbon, naturally, didn't budge, because he wasn't real.
Vejita lifted his head slowly as Chichi raged, and it was only then did she realize that Frieza was there before Vejita, staring down at him.
The first time Vejita had seen Frieza since then.
That squirming, writhing, burning, surging bolt of wrath.
Vejita lied on the cold ground, palms beneath him, head lifted and staring at the creature that had destroyed his home and everything he had worked for, and there was a very strange, nearly breathless stare between them. As if Frieza was attempting to determine if Vejita knew, and Vejita was attempting to determine if Frieza knew that he knew.
Zarbon once more snatched Vejita by the hair and pulled him up, when it was clear the child wasn't getting up on his own.
A tense silence, and then Frieza said, with no hint of shame, "My condolences, Vejita."
Oh, that hate—
Vejita stared at Frieza very blankly, but it wasn't because he was trying to hide things from Frieza as he had before, but rather because the force of the hate he felt had knocked him senseless.
Pulsing, burning, writhing fury, as Frieza cleared his throat a bit and then uttered, ever so easily, "Well, then. It seems we've come to a bit of a crossroads, have we not? Many choices now to be made. Circumstances have changed a bit, haven't they? I suppose it is my duty to ask you then what you would prefer, as previous contracts are now broken. Shall you continue to work for me? You'll be well taken care of. Your efforts will be handsomely rewarded. I guarantee it. Or would you rather just leave my force and go home?"
Thought she saw the smallest of smiles twitch across Frieza's face, as he dangled that word there before a child that could no longer go home, for that home didn't exist.
Vejita was just as struck by it.
Home?
It was Chichi, so restless, who scoffed and hissed under her breath, 'How dare you!'
Vejita was still, silent, calm. Immobile. The only thing keeping Vejita calm then was that numbness, that awe brought on by the sheer audacity. Blank also, because in some way Chichi felt that Vejita just wasn't really there.
Not anymore.
Home.
And certainly she didn't recognize that very soft, very smooth, very breathy voice, when Vejita didn't blink as he met Frieza's eyes and whispered, "Wherever you go, there I'll be."
Chichi shuddered.
Frieza, that time, didn't seem to be too aware of the lack of 'Lord Frieza' from Vejita. As Vejita had been struck dumb by Frieza's words, perhaps Frieza too had felt his own sort of daze at Vejita's quiet oath.
It had been worded in a manner that could be so loyal and benign and yet also so sinister, and if only everyone else could feel how sinister Vejita was then.
Zarbon stared at Vejita in that awful, probing manner, and then glanced at Frieza.
Frieza knew that the child was not so dumb, for he didn't press Vejita then and force him to bow, asked no platitudes of him, and merely said, "In that case, it's time to get back to work, I'm afraid. Alas, life stops for no man's tragedy. Condolences again."
With that, Frieza glided off, and Vejita watched him go.
Chichi hoped that outside the door, Frieza would be the one squirming.
No time to contemplate how to process what he was feeling; Zarbon was once more dragging him, Vejita fell into another daze, and then the next thing he knew he was in a ship, shooting amongst the stars.
But there was one less star in the sky now, one less dot of light, and someone was going to pay for that.
Chichi could feel it there, festering. That need to destroy. That need to hurt. That want to cause absolute and utter destruction, because he had been betrayed. The ships landed soon after, the door opened, and Chichi knew, the very second that Vejita's tiny foot hit the ground, that this time was different. The intention was different. The game was different.
Vejita had purged before, had caused havoc and destruction, for the sole purpose of keeping his father safe. The king was dead. What was the point now? It had been a job before, something he engaged in willingly for his father's sake. Now, he was just another slave in this miserable army. Just another soldier. Just another number.
Couldn't stand it.
Underneath all of that anger, underneath all of that rage, underneath all of the pangs of fury, there was a terrible sense of shame.
Shame.
He hadn't been able to save anyone. Hadn't been able to free them. Hadn't been able to lead an uprising, hadn't been able to depose the tyrant and let the king rise. Hadn't been able to protect his father. Hadn't been able to preserve his planet. Hadn't been able to lead his people. Everyone was dead. Everyone was dead, and it was his fault, really, because he hadn't gotten strong enough, fast enough, because he hadn't been able to reach that legendary level of Super Saiyan in time. Because he hadn't been smart enough.
His fault.
The inhabitants of the planet they were on suddenly surrounded them, coming out from behind hills and from within forests, and Nappa just looked around as he always did, tall and straight and frightening, but Chichi thought that maybe he looked a little more tired than usual.
Raditz, behind Vejita, just stared straight ahead and seemed about as far in space as the child was.
A whir of machinery, a crackle of the scouters, and then a man stepped forward, bravely, and asked, "Who are you?"
It occurred to Chichi that these people didn't look so different from humans. The very first time that she had seen a planet with a race that looked like her own, and, knowing what was to happen, it was honestly terrifying. Like seeing the Earth itself under siege.
Nappa, not really in the mood for smart answers at the moment, just grunted, irritably, "Who are you?"
A firm, strong, powerful voice.
"I'm the king of these lands. Now! Declare yourself."
A spark in Vejita's chest.
Nappa was speaking—Vejita didn't hear him.
Could only stare at that man. The king.
A terrible, burning, seething fury, shooting up as if from the ground itself and then through his feet and into his head.
Nappa stepped forward then, clearly intent on giving the obligatory 'join Frieza's army or be annihilated' speech that he always did, but he had barely opened his mouth when that blue light started emanating from Vejita. Nappa and Raditz shared a quick glance, and Chichi stepped back, as she could feel that awful rage building up in Vejita's chest. Losing control.
Wanted everyone to hurt, as he did.
Wanted everyone to feel what he felt.
Wanted everyone to experience that utter sense of hopelessness that he did.
Wanted everyone to be as afraid as he was.
Nappa turned around fully as Vejita's self-control waned and his power grew, and he asked with a bit of alarm, "Vejita, what are you doing?"
Vejita didn't hear him yet again, eyes still locked onto those of the king of this land, who was now backing away in a fright.
King.
Not fair, none of it was fair, nothing had ever been fair, his father had been king, and being king meant that you were supposed to be better, that you were supposed to be stronger, that you were supposed to be immune from death, kings shouldn't die, kings shouldn't be able to die, not his father—
Wasn't really aware of himself after that, not staring into that king's eyes.
A surge of injustice, that this king had outlived his father. This king was still alive, and their own was not. No words could have ever explained how repulsed Vejita was by that, how hurt, how upset, how furious.
So, in the last remnants of self-awareness, the child just raised his voice and said, in a tone that Chichi had never heard before, "The king is dead; long live the king."
Words Vejita would never hear spoken again on his own planet.
Raditz' mouth opened as if to speak. Didn't have a chance; Vejita's wrath exploded then, like the triggering of a bomb, and the burst of light that erupted all around him lit up and destroyed everything as far as the eye could see.
Blinding light.
Chichi lifted up her hand to cover her eyes, but it was no use; even through her eyelids, through her palm, that impossibly bright flare shone through. Couldn't see. Couldn't breathe, but that was because Vejita wasn't breathing. Wasn't thinking. Wasn't seeing. Vejita shut down, and let his wrath consume the world as it would.
The only things that survived that tidal wave of rage and destruction were Nappa and Raditz, nothing else. The ships had been disintegrated along with the circle of inhabitants surrounding them.
The king included.
Another monarch struck down, but this time by a prince rather than a tyrant.
And yet Vejita didn't stop, because he couldn't. It was just a daze, rage with no thought and no purpose. No awareness.
Voices came in and out through the wall of white.
"Vejita! Stop it! Stop it now!"
Nappa's rough voice, high-pitched as he shrieked at the child.
Raditz' voice, soon after.
"You have to stop! Stop, stop, you're going to kill us all!"
Chichi tried to open her eyes, and saw distant mountains crumbling.
It took every bit of effort she had to remain herself, to stay aware, to stay awake, to cling to her own consciousness, for Vejita was gone.
Just rage and hurt and no way to control himself.
It was all Nappa and Raditz could do, then, faced with the uncontrollable wrath of a tiny child that was far stronger than they were, just to grab him and try to force him still. Hands on his tail, another in his hair and wrenching one of his arms. Whispering in his ear. Voices. Could barely hear them, could barely make them out through the hate, through the rage, through the fury, and Chichi could truly say that she was looking at something absolutely astonishing, otherworldly almost.
Surely this was the sight that had caused legends and myths and every kind of scripture to be written.
This wrath.
The ground quaked beneath his feet. Electricity, crackling all around.
The child was gone, lost up in his anger, and Chichi could see, only because of her own consciousness, the looks of fear there upon Nappa and Raditz' faces. The wide eyes of horror, the open mouths of terror, as static built up and sparked off into the air, the look of absolute panic on Raditz' face as he tried his best to keep a firm grip on Vejita's tail even though he was being shocked.
Nappa's fingers stayed tangled in Vejita's hair, grip so tight that his knuckles were white, but he didn't let go, even as the pulses of energy were clearly causing him a great deal of pain.
If she herself hadn't been so petrified, so terrified of that absolute white-out in Vejita's mind, she might have found it a curious sight, two enormous, powerful males, using all of their might and yet still unable to contain the wrath of a child who only came up to their knees.
But it wasn't funny, not then—it was absolutely horrifying.
The entire planet seemed to be swaying beneath her, rocks and dust flying up into the atmosphere, giant cracks forming in the earth and sucking in trees and water. Canyons and caverns were being creating all around her, and she feared a void would rip open right underneath her feet.
The dirt beneath her was trembling.
A breath away from explosion.
Raditz clenched his teeth and squinted his eyes shut, hair standing up on end in the midst of Vejita's electricity, and Nappa had yanked back Vejita's head as far as he could without snapping his neck, trying in vain to make eye contact and bring the child back down.
No use.
Vejita didn't even see Nappa there, didn't hear his voice, didn't feel his fingers.
Everything was white.
Couldn't breathe.
Could have sworn, for just a second, that she caught a whiff of the king, a long since gone aroma, and she knew that it was just in Vejita's head, only the child's memories, creating a scent out of nothing, trying to recreate something he desperately wanted.
But the smell fled as quickly as it had come, and everything was empty again.
Awful, long moments of helplessness, as everyone there was suddenly quite certain that they were about to die, Chichi included. Hard to remember that they were all together somewhere, kneeling on a cozy floor, when this planet was shaking under her feet.
Bolts of lightning were suddenly raining down all around them, and Nappa had gone from trying to gently coax the child back from the brink to trying to beat him back instead.
A snarl, a stomp of his foot, and Nappa let go of Vejita's arm to pull his own back and aim it at Vejita's stomach. There was no doubt then that Nappa punched the child as hard as he could, but although Vejita staggered back a bit it just wasn't enough to stop him, wasn't enough, not with that rage that was fueling the child.
"Help me!" Nappa bellowed, at paralyzed Raditz, and it took a minute for Raditz to open up his eyes and look at Vejita.
Terror there, within Raditz' eyes, lit up caramel in Vejita's dazzling light.
In that instant, in that expression, in those eyes and that look of fear, Chichi saw a little bit of Gohan. A little bit of Goku, too, buried somewhere in there. In those thick brows and lashes, in those round cheeks, in those brown irises. Could only see a scared child, then, one that very well could have been her own, because he looked like hers.
A pang of homesickness.
Raditz was frozen, those wide eyes still locked onto Vejita, and it took Nappa lashing out with his tail and hitting Raditz on the waist that finally got him to wake up and lift his eyes up to Nappa.
"Together! We have to move quick! Back of the head, together! Let go of his tail when I say, and be quick unless you wanna be space dust!"
Chichi wasn't in Raditz' body, but she didn't even need to be then to know how absolutely terrified he was of dying.
It didn't feel nearly fast enough for Nappa to finally scream, "Now!"
But Raditz froze up.
Once again, his eyes had settled back down to Vejita.
If Nappa had been any angrier then, it would have been him destroying this planet.
"Now! Now! Let go! Now!"
An inhale, sharp and frightened, but Raditz seemed to know that he couldn't wait any longer.
Raditz swallowed his fear, gathered up his courage, and let go of Vejita's tail. Nappa aimed first, and Raditz followed, and together they struck Vejita as hard as they could at the base of the neck.
White faded into black, as Vejita collapsed into unconscious.
Long live the king.
Darkness drifted down.
Ashes, grey against the blackness all around.
Vejita opened his eyes, and stared up at the ashes falling atop him. He was merely drifting there as much as the ashes were, waiting for some wind to come and push him along.
It took him a long while to realize that someone was holding his hand.
He turned his head, ashes falling from his bangs, and felt a rush of happiness, something he hadn't felt in so long now.
His mother was lying there beside of him, holding his hand, watching over him fondly as he had every night. That familiar, comforting humming, as his mother rolled onto his side and smiled at him. Vejita rolled over, too, and it was just like every other night, lying side by side as his mother rested a hand on his face and hummed until he fell asleep.
He reached out, without a hint of fear, and brushed the ashes from his mother's bangs.
Once, fear had never been a word attached to this man.
His mother just smiled.
Vejita pushed his face into his mother's chest, hoping that it was all over and he had done a good job and he had been allowed at last to go home.
Ashes once more accumulated in his mother's black hair.
A long, comforting snuggle, affection and safety long missed, and when Vejita's mother pulled back enough for their eyes to meet, Vejita was once more hypnotized by his mother's eyes.
Always, always, would they be the most beautiful, so impossibly black, so expressive. Ever had Vejita sought to excel, to make himself worthwhile, so that he could draw his mother's gaze and have it proudly atop him. Having his mother look at him—as remarkable as the universe itself.
His mother grabbed his hand once more, and suddenly pulled them both upright.
'Come on,' his mother said, voice low and guttural as he whispered, 'We better hide.'
Hide?
'From who?' Vejita asked, as he trotted alongside to match his mother's quick pace.
No answer.
They came to a familiar door, a bedroom, and Vejita was pulled quickly inside. A curtain, fluttering in the wind from the open window. Darkness, lit up only by the moon streaming in. His mother tugged him along, and they came up to the great dresser in the corner of the room.
Something stirred in Vejita, something lurked beneath, something horrifying, and Vejita dug his heels into the ground, eyes widening in fear as his mother opened up a drawer. When his mother tugged him, Vejita held firm and refused to budge.
Couldn't get in there, not there; something bad had happened before.
His mother turned to look back at him, those black eyes glowing in the moonlight, and his mother just smiled at him then once more, and whispered, voice so low and rough then that it broke and sometimes wisped away altogether, 'It's alright. Don't be afraid. I'm here.'
Once, he hadn't been afraid of his mother being here, and he tried to be brave then but couldn't move, for something bad would happen if he got in, he knew it, could feel it there in his chest.
His mother let go of his hand, and tried, 'I'll get in first. So don't be scared.'
A burst of panic, longing, hurt, fear, everything all at once, when his mother lifted up a foot and stepped into that dresser drawer.
No—
Before Vejita could regain his senses and mobility, before he could reach out in a fright and grab his mother's hand and pull him back out, before he could even really think, the dresser drawer abruptly and loudly slammed shut.
His mother was inside. He was not.
Something was wrong.
Footsteps in the hall.
From within the dresser, his mother was humming, quietly, and Vejita grabbed the handle of the drawer and yanked it with all of his might. It didn't budge. Didn't move at all, and Vejita yanked again.
The footsteps were louder, and yet no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get that dresser drawer to open, and he didn't even know by that point if he was so desperate and frantic because he wanted to get inside or because he wanted to get his mother out.
The footsteps came to a crescendo, just outside the door, and fell silent.
Vejita held the handle in both hands and looked over his shoulder at the door in terror, waiting, not breathing, eyes wide open and lips parted.
The door never opened. No one burst in.
Vejita stared at the door, stared and stared, and when nothing happened, he eventually exhaled shakily and resumed his efforts to open the drawer.
He dared himself to whisper, as loudly as he dared, 'Mother, they're gone. Come out.'
He didn't get out, and there was no answer.
The humming suddenly stopped, replaced by another sound.
Dripping.
Vejita looked down in the moonlight, and saw something dripping down onto the floor from the corner of the dresser.
Something thick, viscous.
Red.
He let go of the handle, and panic forced Vejita back a step, then another, then another, and suddenly once more he was running blindly down the palace halls, covered in his mother's blood.
This time, Nappa didn't come to save him.
He ran and ran, turned this way and that, every door he saw vanished as soon as he closed in on it, another twist, another turn, another desperate run, and with every single hallway he frantically scrambled down, the light was fading.
Getting darker and darker.
Another door, another hope, another run. The doorknob gleamed in the last remnants of light, and Vejita leapt out and lunged for it, just when everything went pitch-black.
Obsidian.
Something in his hand; he twisted it. And then, suddenly, the darkness was gone. A burst of light, crimson, and the sound of flowing water. He tumbled out of through the door of night and into the air, tripping and rolling down into the grass. A breathless moment of awe, as he landed on his back and gazed upward as he breathed too heavily through his mouth.
Red sky.
A white city in the distance. A familiar smell, home, potent and comforting.
Vejita sat up, palms on the blue grass, looked around, and inhaled as deeply as he could. Scents he had long missed. The moss, the grey striped white trees, the must, the earth, the river. Above, the sky was burgundy, as the sun hung low in the horizon. Deep violet and sapphire at the very edge of night. Shades of purple mingling with the red.
Home.
Vejita didn't know how he had come home, and didn't care. His father had promised to bring him, and here he was. That was all.
He looked down at himself, but he was clean. No blood at all. Just a bad dream, that was all, he had fallen asleep while watching the clouds and had had a bad dream. His mother was back in the palace, humming mindlessly away as he waited for Vejita to come back for the night.
The sun steadily lowered, and there was a footstep suddenly, and then another. Not those scary, heavy footsteps from before. Lighter, softer.
Vejita turned his head, and the joy was so powerful that it knocked him as senseless as the prior fear had.
His father.
Tall and regal and handsome, so strong and so wise and so calming. Vejita's purpose and reason, the only motivation, the only thing Vejita had left to love. The person Vejita had loved more than anything else. The very sun itself, to Vejita. The north, the pole, the only thing the child's inner compass ever drew him to, the only thing he followed across the horizon. His father's sun had trailed along the sky, so bright and so warm and yet just out of reach, and Vejita had chased after it endlessly across the lands.
Here, now. At last.
The king knelt down before him, smiling, and Vejita just looked up and stared at him rather dumbly.
The king's hair lit up in shades of red and auburn in the fading sun, eyes golden in last rays of light. Vejita's black eyes flitted over his father's face, and he couldn't explain then why his chest clenched up and his eyes filled with tears. Why it suddenly felt as if he were being suffocated, drowned all over again. Why horror suddenly overrode the comfort of being home. Why joy vanished and was replaced with grief.
Home?
The king reached out and rested a hand on his child's shoulder, and Vejita very abruptly and furiously burst into tears.
That awful feeling there, just under the surface, that something still wasn't right.
Surely enough, his father spoke at last, in that warm, gentle voice Vejita had so desperately missed, and yet his words were terrible for he uttered, 'You got your mother killed, didn't you?'
Oh, that awful guilt; couldn't stand it.
He was wet again, yet again, the blood was back, his mother's blood, and through his crying Vejita could only nod his head, because it was true.
He had killed his mother, and his father had always known that.
But his mother hadn't been the only one Vejita had brought to doom, and ever was it creeping up on him, solidified when the king still smiled on even as he said, 'And me, too. You got us both killed.'
No, hadn't meant to do that, hadn't ever wanted that, he had tried so hard and given it everything he had, it just hadn't been enough.
Hadn't ever wanted that.
Through those furious sobs, Vejita somehow said, in a whine, 'I'm sorry I couldn't save you.'
The king just smiled, and said nothing. Red seeped in, but not from the sky or the sun; blood, steadily soaking his father's chest, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Just watched it spread, and when his father put his palm on Vejita's cheek, he knew it was the very last time.
A final whisper.
'Remember what I said. You'll be the one to end it. Always did you know you would have to do it alone.'
'I don't want to be alone,' Vejita sobbed to the dying light.
The sun set, at last. Light retreated.
The king faded into shadows, and Vejita was alone.
Alone.
To the empty space before him, Vejita whispered, 'All I ever wanted was to save you.'
No answer, because there was no one there, for Vejita hadn't saved anyone.
He had failed.
The sun had set, for Vejita hadn't been able to cling to it. He had been tasked with holding up the sun, with being that last little beacon of hope, he had been tasked with fulfilling every hope of every Saiyan, had been tasked with rising up, just like that sun thrust upon his shoulders, and ridding them of that encroaching night.
The burden of expectation put upon Vejita from his birth had been too heavy, far too heavy, the sun had been too heavy, and Vejita had gotten down at the last breath onto his very knees in the final effort to hold it up, but regardless it had simply rolled off his shoulders and into the abyss. The sun had slipped out of his grasp. His father had slipped out of his grasp.
The sun-king had faded away, for Vejita hadn't been the right person for the task. Vejita was his mother, night, the moon, and never had he been able to control anything but darkness. Had never been a savior, but rather a catalyst for destruction. His father had never been able to see it, but his mother always had.
Vejita would be the one to 'end it', but his father hadn't known that what Vejita would 'end' would be the planet and the race entire.
Night.
The red sky dulled into sapphire and then into muddled slate, and then went black.
No stars.
Chichi had been with Vejita the very first time he had seen his planet's red sky, and so too was she with him when he looked upon it for the very last time.
That sky had gone. The sun wouldn't ever rise again.
The king was dead.
The dream ended, for that was all it ever had been.
Just a dream, because that place and that man no longer existed, and Vejita didn't know how to actually comprehend that.
Night, eternal.
Black steadily lifted up into grey.
Static was the only humming left in her ears.
The next thing she knew, Chichi was sitting on the ground, legs splayed before her and head pounding, tail limp, hands numb. The kings of before had gone, and the new king sat stupefied and disoriented, lost up in space and time.
Warm hands, then, as Raditz picked Vejita up under the arms and found a flat rock upon which to set the child. Vejita, numb and dazed, just let Raditz do as he would, and sat there obediently.
Raditz bent a bit at the waist, clearly wanting to check Vejita over and yet obviously afraid to do so.
No need for fear; the danger was gone.
The anger had passed. Vejita's fury had been exhausted, absolutely exhausted, and now all he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and go to sleep.
Preferably forever.
This planet was dead, but they weren't going anywhere, not anytime soon; Vejita's fury had destroyed their ships.
With little recourse, Raditz set about trying to create them a campsite, as Nappa used his barely functioning scouter to call back to base. The sputtering little thing had only been saved at all because when Vejita had first exploded Nappa had raised his arm to shield his eyes. Lucky; they'd have been stuck here for eternity otherwise. Raditz' had shattered, and Vejita had just left his in the ship because he hadn't cared about anything at all.
Still didn't.
Vejita just sat there on the rock Raditz had set him upon, and stared blankly up at the sky.
Around them, the new canyons were still shifting and rumbling, loose rocks sliding down the cliffs. The sky was clouded, no stars visible, coated still in the massive amounts of dust that had been tossed up into the air. The only scents in the air were those of dirt, and the occasional whiff of smoke, sometimes that smell that was left over after an electrical spark.
Vejita was as zoned out then as he had been when he had been causing utter devastation.
Didn't even realize when Raditz came over to him, tentatively, and knelt down before him until they were eye level.
Raditz tried, "Are you alright?"
Vejita just stared into nothing, eyes vacant, and didn't say a word.
A crinkle of Raditz' brow, a look of concern, and Raditz again took the child up within his arms, taking him over to the camp he had made, and Chichi felt a sudden flush of warmth then, as Vejita was set down carefully in front of a fire.
Nappa was leaning up against a rock, hand on his forehead and looking more than a little rattled. Still high on adrenaline, no doubt.
Raditz walked over to him, tentatively, and asked, "Did you get a hold of anyone?"
Nappa nodded, looking so tired suddenly, and grunted, "Yeah. Nearest ship is eight hundred hours away, though, so you might want to settle in."
Raditz looked around, at the utter destruction, and scoffed.
"Great."
As Vejita stared blankly into the fire, Nappa finally took out a little bit of his aggression on Raditz.
"You idiot," he began, harshly, and Chichi was torn between kneeling beside Vejita and fretting over him and suddenly wanting to fret over Raditz, who was really just a kid, too.
Raditz was part of her family, whether anyone had ever wanted him to be or not.
Raditz glanced up at Nappa, who carried on, "You coulda gotten us all killed! What the hell's the matter with you? You gonna freeze up every time something scary happens, huh? Is that all you're good for? You fool! If you're too damn scared to keep going, then let me know. I'll have Zarbon assign you somewhere else. You're a liability."
A furrow of Raditz' brow, a narrowing of his eyes, and he opened his mouth as if to defend himself, but quickly fell short. A glower, nearly a pout, and Chichi came over and sat next to Raditz because that expression had reminded her so much of Goten that it hurt.
Raditz' face suddenly fell, and he bowed his head.
"Sorry. I— You're right. I got scared."
"You can't be scared of anything," Nappa stated, firmly and suddenly sounding very much like the general he was, trying very hard then to put Raditz in place with his eyes alone. It was working; Raditz was already squirming. "What good are you to us if you're scared to fight?"
Raditz grumbled, weakly, "I'm not scared to fight. I'm not scared of him. It's— I'm scared of dying. That's what I'm scared of. That's the only thing I'm scared of."
Dying.
Everyone was scared of dying. Perfectly normal, and Chichi thought that maybe she saw Nappa's face soften, just a little.
Raditz tried to distract himself by turning his attention to blank Vejita, who stared into the flames, barely blinking. His mind was barely functioning, barely even lit up, and Chichi could only sense static, as if the radio in Vejita's head had been turned to a dead channel.
Raditz tried to smile, failed miserably, and instead whispered, "You shouldn't watch the fire like that. You're going to hurt your eyes."
At Vejita's immobility, Raditz hung his head and sighed.
That was an awful night.
As they all huddled together for warmth and out of misery, Chichi sat down on crossed legs and placed one hand on Vejita's head and the other on Raditz', these two lost children with nowhere to go and no one waiting for them, and she knew it was stupid and useless but god help her she wished she could have just scooped the both of them up and taken them home.
In her heart, maybe, she was just resting her hands again on the heads of Goten and Gohan, as she sometimes had when they had slept fitfully in the midst of bad dreams.
A mother was always a mother, at the end of all things.
And Raditz, in more than one way, was really hers, too, because he was family. Had never met the man, had never wanted to, had never thought twice about him, and now here she was claiming him into the lineage, and all because he had the same color eyes as Goku and the same nose as Gohan.
She had to cling to something, anything, to remain sane.
Dawn came, with smoke and dust.
Raditz once more sat Vejita in front of the fire, and once more chided him for staring dumbly right into it.
Something happened then, that Chichi didn't expect.
Over the static, over the fog, over the endless void of space, there was something that began to steadily creep in under the grey.
A scent.
She didn't recognize it right off, and neither did Vejita, but it came up on him all the same, and it was his subconscious that led him then, as he turned his head, trying to gather a bearing on his surroundings. Didn't take long for the child to realize that it was coming from Raditz' direction, and maybe it was because he was so lost then that he allowed himself to fall into that instinct-driven impulse to seek out that scent.
A sudden movement, as Vejita leaned forward onto his palms, dragging himself over the Raditz' side.
A split second of searching, and Chichi realized what Vejita was clamoring over to.
Raditz' hair.
The scent of Raditz' hair had broken through the daze, and with it came a sense of comfort, calm, security, something the child had been desperately lacking ever since he had left his mother's arms, and it didn't take long for Vejita to act upon that sensation. Raditz sat deathly still as tiny hands picked up his heavy hair, and Vejita crawled underneath Raditz' great mane, nuzzling himself in quite cozily and burrowing away from the world he was in, pressed in between the warmth of Raditz' back and the weight of his thick hair.
Chichi was very certain that Raditz wasn't even breathing, so frightened was he of disturbing Vejita and setting him off again.
A moment of positioning, long seconds of adjusting, and then Vejita found his comfort and settled in, and Chichi could feel that he had every intention of going to sleep right there.
For the first time in so long, Vejita felt safe. Secure. The way he had once felt, held in his mother's arms.
The child was out like a light, in that warm feel of comfort, and right before he slipped away, Chichi heard Nappa mutter, bitterly, "He's made a nest of your hair. 'Bout time that mop came in handy."
Before she went with Vejita into the dark, right when the veil of sleep was upon her, when the world was somewhere between dreams and reality, Chichi could have sworn that she was somewhere else, could have sworn that she was lying in her bed, cool sheets beneath her and an arm over her waist, moonlight lighting up soft shadows, her face pressed into dark hair. Long-gone feelings of intimacy, comfort, love. The way the world had felt when someone had been at her side. The way everything had seemed safe and beautiful when someone had protected her. The happiness she used to feel, falling asleep in the arms of the only person she had ever wanted.
That familiar scent.
Comforting not only to Vejita, the scent of Raditz' hair.
Homesickness. Longing. Not so long ago, she had fallen asleep to that same aroma.
Once upon a time, someone had loved her.
She had lost something somehow, along the way, and had never been able to find it again. No matter how hard she had searched, how hard she had looked, no matter how much she had wanted it, it had never come back, because sometimes things you loved more than anything else vanished and it was too hard to admit, so endless searching seemed the only response.
In the dark, lost, inactive part of his mind, Vejita searched constantly for his father.
Gone.
More than the king, Vejita had lost himself along this dark road.
Into the night they both wandered, Vejita and Chichi, and there was no end in sight. Nappa and Raditz stumbled along somewhere, trying to feel their way around, still trying, still forcing themselves along, as Vejita just sat down there in the dark and waited for his father to come find him.
He never would.
No one would ever find Vejita, because Vejita had gone.
'I'm sorry I couldn't save you,' Vejita had said.
Chichi looked at the child that night, and said those same words to him, for when she awoke again he would be gone. Whoever the dawn brought, whoever woke up, whoever carried on, whoever this person was from here on out, it wouldn't be the Vejita she had grown to know.
That child had lied down and died alongside his father, and no longer existed any more than his planet did.
Someone else.
Another mother's failure.