-- Disturbance, Book 3: Endurance --
Chapter E04 - What I've Done
Disclaimer: The fun about this sentence is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything, it's too late to stop reading it. Also: See first chapter.
--
-In this farewell-
-There's no blood, there's no alibi-
"Wow, that was close!"
"A little too close 'Ten." Hanging by his shirt was hardly the most graceful rescue, but even Oran had to grudgingly admit it was a nice save on Gohan's part, even if the teen did look incredibly strange holding one child under each arm, another in each hand, and Piccolo with his legs. Leaning his head back to watch the tense teen, Oran added, "You can let us go now Gohan."
With a quick nod and an embarrassed laugh, proving that underneath the hardass warrior was the cheerful Gohan they all knew and loved, the demi-Saiyan released his iron grip on Goten and Oran's gi's, then moved his arms enough for Trunks and Lime to extricate themselves, before releasing his hold on Piccolo.
Dusting himself off, and fixing his lavender hair, Trunks remarked, "That was quite a blast. But why would Buu kill himself like that? Surely he didn't think a suicide attack would kill you Gohan."
"He didn't," the teen replied calmly, holding one hand out towards the massive smoke pillar of the fast fading explosion.
"Ah, right, he was hoping to get us then," Trunks added with a shrug, "I guess we would've been easy enough to suicide away, but why-"
-Cause I've drawn regret-
-From the truth of a thousand lies-
"No Trunks," Gohan cut him off, "What I mean is he didn't kill himself. He just unleashed a massive explosion to hide his escape." A slight whistling sound and a glint of steel heralded Gohan's sword, flying out of the rubble and directly into his hand, still smoking slightly from the mass of energy that had washed over it when he dropped it to grab the others.
"Huh?" Goten asked in the cute confused way that only he could, "Then where'd he go?"
"Down." His older brother replied, spinning his sword a few times to shake the smoke and dust off before sheathing it. "He's headed underground, probably to wait until we're unprepared before attacking again, or to gather more strength or something."
"You really think he's planning something?" Trunks asked sceptically.
Before the older Saiyan could reply, Lime shrugged and stated, "I would. He knows he can't win in a fair fight, so he'll try to draw Gohan into an unfair one instead."
"Whatever he's planning, I'll be ready for him," Gohan stated firmly, before asking, "So, what happened to everyone else?"
-So let mercy come, and wash away-
-What I've done-
Silence descended upon the room, as everyone watched the fading pink explosion through the view screen. It couldn't last forever though, and soon enough, the voice of the short monk Krillin asked, "Did he kill himself?"
Kaen shorted derisively, replying, "You think he regenerated himself from atoms and killed almost all life forms on Earth, only to blow himself up in a pointless attempt at killing Gohan? You're kidding me right?"
"So where'd he go then?" Videl asked curiously, taking her eyes off the new crater to look at the Saiyan teen. "I mean, he can't have just vanished can he?"
With a slow shake of her head, Pi remarked, "Down. That's all we could pick up before the explosion knocked out our sensors."
Putting a hand to his chin, Truniz muttered, "So he's gone to ground then. The question is, why?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Avarrdo commented. "Sometimes to take a step forward, you need to take a step back."
With a solemn nod, Kellre added, "He's planning something, there's no doubt in my mind of that. I guess we're just going to have to wait and see what that 'something' is."
-I'll face myself, to cross out what I've become-
-Erase myself, and let go of what I've done-
"So you're telling me that everyone's dead?" Gohan asked, a note of disbelief in his voice. When the kids before him nodded - and more importantly, Piccolo didn't object - he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, before adding, "Did you actually see Buu kill them?"
After a moment of thought, Goten shook his head, replying, "Uh... Nope. By the time we got out, all that was left was Buu and Liran. Everybody else was gone."
"Now that you mention it," Lime added, "If what Pickles said is true, and they were all still alive when he brought Buu into the chamber, they should still be alive now. I mean, Buu didn't really have enough time to kill anyone before we rocked up."
Looking amongst the group, Trunks asked, "But then, where would they be?"
Oran just rolled his eyes. "The Icebreaker. Where else would they all be?"
-Put to rest-
-What you thought of me-
Taking a deep breath, Piccolo stated, "Gohan, I don't know how to tell you his, but Videl... I... watched Buu-"
"No Piccolo," Gohan cut him off with a smile, "You only thought you did. Videl is alive and well." At the Namek's questioning look, Gohan gave a half-shrug before adding, "I can't explain it, but I know I'd know if anything happened to her."
Oran gave him a look that clearly showed the boy's disbelief; he knew that Gohan knew exactly why. However, if the older-but-younger Saiyan didn't want to say it, who was he to call him up on it?
Before anyone else could comment, assuming they were even going to, Gohan remarked cheerfully, "In any case, why don't we go round up Dende, hm? I can still sense him faintly, so he's definitely still alive, which means the dragon balls are still active, and I've a feeling we'll be needing them soon enough." Without waiting for a reply he took to the sky, leaving the others to follow lest they be left behind.
-While I clean this slate-
-With the hands of uncertainty-
"Hey boy, there's something I've been meaning to ask you that's never come up."
"What is it old man?" Kaen sighed, glancing over at his father and placing his fingers inside the book to mark his place; with the fight on the view screen seemingly over for now, he'd been forced to find other, pedestrian means of entertaining himself while his body recovered.
"Why did you all but trick the twins into playing video games?" Regardless of what the answer was, they all knew it would change nothing. Avarrdo would be the first to admit that he wasn't much of a father, with his kids coming a distant third to his mate and his work (in that order) so he'd more or less left them to raise themselves; or, more accurately, he'd left Kaen to raise them.
In a very real sense, Kaen was the twins' father. Avarrdo may have been their male genetic donor, but it was Kaen who raised them, taught them about life, trained them, and who they aspired to be. As such, Kaen knew more than anyone what was best regarding the twins' well being. Thus, if he felt it was best the twins play video games, then clearly that was what was best.
Avarrdo just wanted to know why that was so.
With another sigh, Kaen slid a bookmark between the pages and set the book aside, a tired smile coming to his face as he remarked, "I was wondering when this'd come up. Quite frankly, I'm surprised you waited so long."
"You knew we knew?" Kellre had to admit, he too was curious, though for different reasons. While the older Saiyan was not even close to being the twins' father, he had watched their development with interest, especially as they raised themselves in Kaen's absence. With his recent insight into the inner workings of Kaen's mind, he too was suitably intrigued.
Kaen gave his father's friend a wan smile, remarking, "The sphere pool you had me test was a bit of a giveaway." He lapsed into silence, and for a moment it appeared he wasn't going to answer, before he sighed a third time and stated in a quiet, solemn tone, something that shocked them all; well, except maybe Pi. "I don't want them to wind up like me."
-So let mercy come, and wash away-
-What I've done-
That single comment almost caused Avarrdo to lose his reserve; almost. Managing to wrangle his shock enough to speak normally, he asked, "What do you mean? You're everything they've ever aspired to be their entire lives."
"And where has that gotten them?" Kaen shot back. "Where has my lifestyle gotten me? Yes, they're strong, and yes, they can fight extremely well, but what else do they have? What else did I have?"
With a heavy sigh, he glanced at Pi, keeping his eyes locked to hers as he continued, "Before we arrived here on Earth, the only things I had were Pi, my fighting skills, and my family. No friends, no skills not geared towards combat, no life outside of war. And before we arrived here, that was fine; we'd been at war for longer than I'd been alive. But the war's long done. We're all just folk now."
Looking away from his mate and back to his father, he continued, "When I look at them, I see everything wrong with my own life. They're emotionally and socially stunted, and have few, if any, interests outside of fighting. And so I've been doing everything I could to 'fix' them, but they're too entrenched in their ways for me to simply tell them to think differently."
"So why the games?" Avarrdo asked curiously. "They claimed they were 'training simulators'." His tone carried an air of question; clearly, he believed that little white lie was one of Kaen's.
-I'll face myself, to cross out what I've become-
-Erase myself, and let go of what I've done-
Kaen smiled. "Because that's what normal kids do. However their minds rationalized it wasn't my concern at the time."
Kellre nodded; it made a lot of sense. There was, however, still one thing he was curious about. "But why did the twins say you yourself had played them?"
"Because I have," He shrugged, "And before you ask, there are two reasons I have. One, I kind of missed out on a normal childhood myself, and two, with the twins wanting to be like me, the only way I am guaranteed to make them change is to make them see me in a different light. I know for a fact that, in their minds, if I like something, it must be good, and therefore they'll like it."
Truniz grinned. "Using their own conditioning to de-condition them. The old men have taught you well."
Kaen shrugged half-heartedly, remarking, "I use the tools I'm given." Glancing at his mate once more before turning back to his old man, he added, "S'why I brought them to the club too. I mean, I don't expect them to grow up wanting to be a rock star or anything, but I want them to see that it's okay to not only have, but express emotions; that it's okay, even expected, to have friends, and the benefits that come from it; and to expose them to children that had a normal life, or at least something that passed for a normal life, so they'd have something to guide their change."
"Oh, so that's why you asked me to encourage Leo to bring his family along!" Kat remarked, interrupting before she lost her sudden brainwave.
-For what I've done-
-I start again, and whatever pain may come-
-Today this ends, I'm forgiving what I've done!-
Kaen grinned slightly. "Yeah, pretty much. Granted, that didn't exactly go to plan, but if they made even one friend out of it, the plan was a success. Besides, Trunks and Goten need more social contact themselves, so it all works out."
Smiling softly over at her son, April asked gently, "Why couldn't you just tell us? You know we would've supported you in this, right?" She knew she was as much to blame for the twins being the way they were as anyone else, but unlike Avarrdo, all she had to blame it on was the death of her eldest son, and the reported death of her second; she'd never really handled Korin's death well, so she'd distanced herself from her children slightly so she wouldn't suffer like that again, a feeling only compounded when Kaen was also reported dead.
Nodding, Kaen smiled a little sheepishly before replying, "Yeah, I know, but I had to see if it was going to work first. Didn't exactly wanna get all of you involved if I was just setting myself up for failure."
"You've changed," Truniz stated after a few moments of silence, a sincere smile on his face. "The boy who left home to go to war would've never admitted that he couldn't do anything, and the man who came back wasn't all that much better."
Kaen just shrugged, replying simply, "Death has a way of reshuffling one's perspectives."
Giving him a confused glance, Krillin asked, "But you haven't died... have you?"
The teen just smirked, commenting flippantly, "And that, shortie, is the million zenni question."
-I'll face myself, to cross out what I've become-
-Erase myself, and let go of what I've done-
"You stabbed me! You stabbed me with my own staff!"
"Get over it! I did what I had to do to keep you alive!"
"You didn't have to stab me! You could've just knocked me out."
"Would you like me to knock you out right now? Maybe I should stab you again!"
Gohan gave a tired sigh, covering his face with his hands. When had he become the responsible adult of the group? He was barely eighteen, by all rights he should be the one having the needless argument; but no, he was forced to be the responsible one, looking after four kids, all known troublemakers, and two immature adults.
In a weary voice, the teen remarked, "Now children, behave. Don't make me send you to your rooms without dinner for the rest of the war." It was an exceedingly pointless, and hollow, threat, but it had the desired effect of shutting them up. "Good. Now then, I don't care who did what to whom, or why. The most important thing right now is survival."
"What happened to everyone else on the Lookout?" Dende asked worriedly.
Clearing his throat, Oran replied in his father's patented lecturing tone, "Our theory is that they've been teleported onto the Icebreaker for their own safety until the conflict is over."
When Dende breathed a sigh of relief, Gohan continued, "We're gonna need more than a handful of people if the race is to survive, and for that we need the dragon balls. Do we have a dragon radar?"
-What I've done!-
"My mum's got it," Trunks remarked. "Goten's dad had Liran an' me fetch it, and I gave it to mum when we got back to the Lookout."
"There's one problem with that Gohan," Piccolo pointed out, "Bulma used the dragon balls to make a wish yesterday, so the balls are inert for the next four months."
Oran was impressed at the volume and variance of Saiyan curse words that issued forth from Gohan's mouth at that statement; he and his sister already knew most of them, of course, but the fact Gohan knew them was impressive all the same. Winding down after almost five minutes, the teen scrubbed a hand through his already messy hair, remarking sourly, "Well, there goes that plan..."
Looking up at his brother, Goten asked, "What are we gonna do niichan?"
A deep rumbling laugh from behind them was his answer. "What are you gonna do?" Spinning around, they took in the sight of the horrid pink monster standing before them.
Majin Buu had returned.
-Forgiving what I've done!-
--
Author's notes:
Well, this one was a long time coming huh? And in the end, it wound up mostly filler anyway... I do appologise for that, I should've had this done at least a week ago. On the plus side, this extra time to think has given me a cool idea for how to spice up the next chapter, so, look forward to it. Hopefully, it won't take nearly as long as this one did...