Thanks to Adli for making this chapter readable.

Contending with Darkness

Chapter Twelve

An eruption of indistinguishable figures formed before her squinting eyes, gathering directly in front of her. One of them, a tall, gangly figure, wrapped its shadowy arms around her neck, around her mouth, and squeezed the oxygen like the last scrap of toothpaste coiling out of a tube. Numbness collected from her feet, worked its way up to her head, freeing her body from the hell, while the arms kept a tight hold. Silence instilled as she waited for death to take her, but the hold was too familiar, too local. Her mind overran with conflicting thoughts, consciously searching for the source of the captor—the name. But the image wouldn't form. Whoever had a hold of her was neither killing her, nor saving her; protecting or attacking. It was just there, attached to her, not letting go, stealing her from her own mind, world and everything she knew. It had her. It would always have her.

"Bulma," a mewling voice said, drawing her dream to a thudding finish.

She reluctantly opened her eyes, knowing that she had yet to escape the reality of what her life had become. The strange, and bizarrely desirable, dream had been nothing more than a pathetic fiction. Not real. This was real. The throbbing in her temple was real. The itching pain in her ankle was still real. She could touch upon all these pains, feel the bruises dappled on her skin. The dream was gone, and parts of it she couldn't remember already. A dry lump formed in her throat, cajoling a sob, but she held it back, twitching her fingers against the freezing stone floor.

"Bulma." Chichi's tear-blotched face hung over her, her black tresses swaying inches away from Bulma's nose. "You're awake," she said, smiling softly and sniffing a drop of mucus back up her left nostril.

Bulma sat up on her elbows, slow enough as to not exacerbate the incessant ailments all over her body. They were in a dimly lit room, where two adjacent stone coffins sat in the centre, eerily ominous and silent, like they could crack open any moment. She scanned the room, seeing the cobwebs, and praying that planet Orlon had tiny spiders like on Earth, and not some great, ferocious, drooling beast who was ready to chow down on them. After swivelling her aching neck to as far as she could bear, she found herself turning back to Chichi, who had a slight look of bewilderment on her face. It pinched the inside of Bulma's head for some reason.

"You just collapsed," Chichi said, twiddling her thumbs in her lap.

A heavy lurch in Bulma's chest, feeling like her heart was about to creep between the gaps in her ribs, made her sit up straight, grating her nails into the gritty floor. "Where's Vegeta?" she said, turning her head like a wild bird of prey.

If Vegeta wasn't around, the anklet would kill them both. The image of Vegeta and that other warrior, poised and ready to obliterate one another, flashed into her mind like an intrusive siren. Her body felt too limp to get up and run around, so, helplessly, she lunged for Chichi, grabbing her thin shoulders and staring into her dilating pupils.

Chichi stammered. "They're both outside. Are you OK?" she said, peeling Bulma's hands from her shoulders and setting them back down in her lap.

"Both?"

Chichi nodded.

"What's going on?" Bulma clenched her fists to stop her from diving for Chichi again.

Chichi shrugged all too casually. "I don't know. As soon as you passed out, they just … stopped." She shuffled on her bottom, flashing a pair of dirt encased plimsolls, the same ones Bulma had bought her right before they were abducted.

The feeling of anxiety subsided, loosening the tightness of her back muscles. The air was cool and oddly refreshing, considering they were sat in a crypt. Well, it didn't look like they had moved far. There must have been a valid reason behind it, but by the looks of things, Chichi was just as oblivious as she was.

"What does it matter?" the dark haired woman stated, her brow furrowing as she studied Bulma. "We're both here—alive."

The empty words vibrated in her eardrums, but she didn't hear them. Coming out of a stare, Bulma absently mumbled, "Where's your Dragon Ball?"

"Raditz has it."

Bulma cocked a brow, but put two and two together without question. Something else was burdening her from showing much affection towards Chichi, something that now held great importance to her.

"Where'd you find it?" she said, lowering her eyes to Chichi's flexing, fumbling fingers.

"In a forest somewhere—I don't know."

"Did you kill anyone for it?"

"Bulma—"

"Did you?" she said, locking eyes with Chichi, who looked like a startled baby ready to cry.

"No. Bulma, what is this?" she said, the fire and flare returning in her voice.

It sent a wave of warmth through Bulma's body—the all too familiar verbal bashings Chichi used to give her back home for the littlest of slipups. With the spare energy she could muster, Bulma swivelled her upper body, pulling a tender muscle in her ribs, and searched for the backpack, which was to the side of her, sitting patiently for her return. She scraped it across the floor, and clawed her way into it, fervidly ragging the zip open, while Chichi sat silent, watching.

The gleam of the five Dragon Balls drew Chichi closer to the bag, as Bulma opened the zip further, determined to show her friend what she had accumulated over the past few days of hell.

"Five," she said in a monotone, displaying an indifferent façade.

Chichi's eyes flicked from the contents of the bag, back to Bulma, noticing the heavy toll this game had taken on her dear friend, how her eyes, instead of holding that crystal, oceanic blue, had now faded to a dull, lifeless shade of grey. She reached out, taking Bulma's cold hands in hers and squeezed.

"Bulma … What happened?"

Bulma felt the dry lump return, but to release the brimming tears would do no benefit. She had learnt that, at least. Instead, she closed her eyes, squeezed Chichi's hand back, and whispered, "Too much."

There was no need to go into detail. For anyone who hadn't experienced what she had gone through over the past five days, talking about it wouldn't give them any greater insight than not knowing at all. It was layered with too much pain and darkness that going back there would mean reliving those moments. The best thing for her to do, would be to try and forget everything. A hot tear escaped and trailed down her cheek, getting caught on the corner of her mouth.

Footsteps stomped into the room, crunching against the floor and echoing throughout the crypt.

"Check the radar," Vegeta's gruff voice said, the booming sound bouncing off the walls.

Bulma jumped, wrenched her hand free from Chichi's grasp, almost toppling backwards, and looked for Vegeta, reacting more eagerly than she had wanted. He stood in the centre of the room, beside the stone coffin that was embossed with foreign carvings all over the outer casing. He crossed his arms and regarded Bulma for a fraction of a second, narrowing his eyes quicker than anyone who didn't know him couldn't see, before frowning and arching his head towards the giant warrior who sauntered in several seconds later.

A fire of agitation singed the back of her throat, and she shot up, stumbling into a wall at first, regaining her stature, and stalked over to the indifferent warrior. "What's going on?"

Without looking at her, her said, "We're getting the next Dragon Ball, and if you protest, you'll miraculously become unconscious again."

Her jaw set and she clenched her fists, ready to punch him in the mouth. It felt as if she was approaching a bully, after riling herself up for days and days on end about how she could confront him, only for him to completely overturn her existence. Though, his features, despite being obviously impassive, were concealing something else, something important. There was a faint shadow of angst behind his steely composure.

The other warrior (or, Raditz, as Chichi had called him) looked similar to Vegeta, if you disregarded the great difference in height. This guy made Vegeta look like a dwarf. He had to be at least seven feet tall. And his hair was draped down his back, ending in soft tufts by his knobbly knees. Bulma quickly averted her eyes when he caught her staring. There was something oddly fascinating about him. Vegeta could most likely pass for a human, but Raditz … he was definitely extra-terrestrial. There was no doubt about that.

Without a word, she retrieved the backpack, took the radar out and clicked it to life again. The screen took a few seconds to regain consciousness, but when it did, the high pitch bleeping rang aloud inside the building. All heads turned towards her, and a cold sweat crawled down her scalp, as the radar searched for what they wanted. She narrowed her eyes. The screen focused on one spot, which was only fifty miles away. Fifty miles to the next and final Dragon Ball, and then it would all be over. But in what manner she wasn't sure. A voice in her head told her to keep it as her secret, to hold onto it so no one else could take it, and she knew that, right then, she was beginning to lose her mind. Her fingers clenched the radar tighter, the cold metal becoming warm and slick.

"It's not far. Fifty miles north. It won't take long to get there," she said, sliding the radar into her back pocket.

"Good," Vegeta said, looking to Raditz, who was still standing in the doorway, his bulky body just about the right height and width to fit in.

A rough scratching sound reverberated against the walls as Chichi scraped herself off the floor, watching owlishly from Raditz to Vegeta. Bulma had never seen Chichi like this. It was unsettling for her to be acting so out of character. Back home, she would have been the strong, out-spoken woman, ordering people around, having everything organised. Here, she didn't even seem to know who she was anymore. Bulma kept expecting Chichi to explode into a fit of blistering anger, but it didn't happen. Only an empty shell had been left behind. Even on Frieza's ship, Chichi had retained her positive attitude. Seeing her like this only made Bulma more determined to keep her own head on her shoulders.

"You should move, then," Vegeta said, suddenly within an arm's length of Bulma.

"Let's go," Raditz said, his voice low and gravelly, like a car rumbling up a driveway.

Bulma sighed, grabbed the backpack and slipped it onto each shoulder, before steadying herself for the journey ahead. Whatever was heading her way wasn't going to be as bad if they had a couple extra bodies to help thicken the team. If mutant monsters wanted to tear her muscles to shreds, then they would have to pass through two warriors first, and judging by the sheer, towering presence of Raditz, she guessed it was going to take a lot to knock him down.

The backpack knocked against her spine as she shrugged it into a more comfortable position. Chichi wandered over to her, limping—something Bulma had failed to notice up until now. "C'mon. The quicker we can get this over with, the better. You never know—we might actually get to see home again," Bulma said, giving Chichi's limp hand a reassuring squeeze.

Raditz lead the way, ducking under the doorway and thudding out into the night air, and Chichi followed, looking like a child in comparison. Bulma tightened her grip on the backpack and went to follow behind, when she found herself unable to move, restricted by a strong, unyielding barricade. Her heart fluttered as panic waded through her body, her eyes watching her friend wandering further into the pitch darkness.

"Woman," Vegeta huffed, reeling her back in. "You're not going."

She thrashed her arms and legs, her eyes still fixed on Chichi's vanishing frame. "Chichi," she shouted, but the other woman continued without giving her a single glance. Bulma could see her shoulders shuddering from crying, and knew she needed her. "Get off me!"

She clawed at Vegeta's arm, lunged her body forward, but to no avail. The only thing she received was stabbing pains up her spine. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over the waterlines, dribbling down her cheeks and slipping into her mouth. The tears tasted bitter, and she chocked on her own sobs. "I have to—"

Why was he stopping her? She couldn't leave Chichi alone. Not again. This wasn't happening. It couldn't have been happening. Vegeta knew how much this had meant to her. Why would he do this to her? Why now?

For the first time, she bellowed out in pain. But it wasn't the physical pain that had taken its toll on her. The mental exhaustion had settled in, and now it was making its presence known, booming from her lungs like a broken instrument. Vegeta's hold tightened around her waist as her struggling movements gradually petered out to soft scratches across his forearms. Her energy had gone, her mind had gone, and Chichi had gone. Her voice, raw and strained, rasped into heavy, laboured breaths, as her only hope disappeared amongst the shadows once again.

A ringing resounded in her ears, and only the muffled sound of Vegeta's breathing kept her from slipping under again. His grip was tight, and warm, but not welcoming or comforting.

That was all anybody had ever done to her—stopped her from doing what she needed to do.

"I need to catch up with them," she mumbled, dazed, blinking long and languorously, her limbs slumping forward, allowing her full weight to press into his hold.

"Raditz is a warrior. He has yet to fight in this game. If he has the blood of a true warrior coursing through his veins, like he claims so, then he will be desperate to get his hands dirty." Vegeta kept a steady grip. "A warrior fights alone. Not in a pack."

He finally let go of her, and she sank to her knees, sending a shock of pain through her thighs. Her hands slapped the cold floor, and the caress of the night's breath drifted in from the empty doorway, the same doorway she had just watched her friend vanish from her sight. Bulma had vowed to herself to protect Chichi for the rest of this, to make sure that she didn't die, even if it meant Bulma dying first. As much as Bulma wanted to get back home, back to Earth, there wasn't much waiting for her. Yes, she had Capsule Corporation and her mom and dad, but Chichi had a young son. Or, at least, she thought she still had Gohan. God only knew what was going on anywhere beyond this horrid nightmare.

Defeated, she let her body collapse to the floor, and she closed her eyes. Why didn't Chichi turn back, or even look at her? It was as if that wasn't the same woman from back home, at all.

The blaring morning sun shed white rays of light across the graveyard, illuminating the poorly preserved marble and stone, highlighting the presence of thousands of long-rotten corpses that lay underneath the uneven ground. Vegeta watched as things started to come to life, night weeds that bloomed under the dawn awakening, revealing their purple, outstretched petals. Unblemished. Something so alive amongst a sea of dead.

He nudged himself into a more comfortable seating position, outstretching his bare left foot to touch the other side of the archway, accidently kicking a bulk of stone from the wall, and flinching as it cracked and popped against the floor. The world had become silent again. And it was … pleasant. A short moment of peace before demise was always something to look forward to. But this wasn't the first time he had been led to think that way. There had been many times when Vegeta thought death was waiting for him, hiding beyond a blind corner, ready to jump and snatch his life. He would always find himself waking up in a rejuvenation tank, feeling the throb of his own punctured guts, inwardly screaming for death to come back. That was the coward's way out. He was far from cowardice. Miles from it. Never would he run and hide. This game had forced him to do such abominable things, and now he knew that he would never be the same warrior he was less than a week ago.

His eyes trailed the inside of the crypt, lazily landing on the woman who was strewn out across the floor, her limbs all hunched together cradling her body, her hair straggled across her face, while she slept. Whether her dreams were peaceful or not, he knew they were a sight better than the nightmares that haunted his subconscious. No matter how tired he had been in this game, sleep was never an ally. He avoided it like a contagious disease. But this creature, this enigma of a creature, needed slumber so regularly, so methodically. The gradual rise and fall of her chest soothed him, almost hypnotised him, and he decided that it would do no harm to sit and watch her for a while. A slice of sunlight found its way into the crypt, sending a blade of golden yellow up the length of her body, bounding over the curves, and up to her shrouded face. She looked so vulnerable, so fragile, like a single touch and she would shatter into a thousand pieces of fine diamond. His muscles tightened the more he thought about her.

It would be so easy to kill her, to end her torment while she slept. She wouldn't know a thing.

Her body jolted, and she shot up, raking the floor with her fingernails, gasping and sweating. Her eyes danced around the room, and he saw the realisation sink into her bones.

No, you haven't escaped. You're still trapped under Frieza's control.

There was moisture around her bloodshot eyes, and she wiped them with the heel of her hand like they were acidic drops melting her skin. There was silence for a moment while she recollected everything that happened. He could see it collecting in her face. The betrayal, the hurt, the anguish. All signs he had seen on so many before, and had failed to provoke him to feel anything other than disgust. Something was different. A churning in his abdomen, a sensation of discomfort moulding around his nerves, changing the way the blood flowed in and out of his heart.

She made a noise, like a child bawling for only a moment before realising there was nothing that could help the situation, before she clasped her hands around her mouth, closed her eyes and shook her head despairingly.

The churning in his stomach was irritating him now, his inner voice telling him to turn away from her. Looking at this mess was not going to solve any problems. But that sound. No. He crossed his arms tighter than usual, pressing his fingers into the solid muscles of his biceps, and he looked back onto the bleached headstones of the graveyard, wishing for the peaceful silence to overturn her feeble mewling. Maybe she had woken up and realised that this wasn't the kind of fucking game she played at one of her Earthling parties; this was a battle. A real battle. And things didn't always run as sickly smooth as she was used to.

The night weed was no longer a flourish of purple. It had now digressed into a mould-green, and was turning in on itself, squirming under the leering sun. Just another corpse. When you had seen death once, you had seen it all. It was all the same.

"He was a Saiyan."

Her voice was dry and raspy, wrangled by distress.

He remained still, keeping fixed on the dead weed, which was now crisping and crumbling into a small pile of dirt, though a spike of curiosity jabbed his brain.

"He called you Prince Vegeta."

He swivelled round, frowning. "What are you getting at?" It had nothing to do with her. Why was she constantly picking and prodding at him for answers that did not matter to her?

"Nothing," she said, narrowing her bloodshot eyes at him, before turning away from him, crossing her legs and folding her arms.

He much preferred it when she was asleep. Or if she was dead. That might be better. His eyes squinted until they were dark slits, studying her movement for anything at all. But as the long seconds passed, and she had yet to turn round and dart another question at him, he felt like he had an obligation to explain to her. Never had he felt this way. It was like a volcanic eruption, bubbling up his throat, grazing his oesophagus until the pain became too much, and he had to speak. Their future was not set in stone, not chipped away and carved like the many headstones outside. He sighed, looked his anklet, then back to her. After the recent turn of events, he would give her marginal insight. Nothing more.

"Raditz was my subordinate. He accompanied me on most of the missions ordered by Frieza. To answer your question—Yes, I know him well," Vegeta said, his voice calm, blocking any emotion. There. He had said it.

Bulma didn't turn round, but the way she stopped quivering told him that she was giving him her attention.

"We purged planets, killed millions of innocent civilians. It's was—is in our blood. And after we had finished wiping a pathetic planet of its vermin, we would move to the next one, and the one after that, until we no longer considered them as planets at all. They were merely a blot in the wider space, a blot that needed to be erased, and we were the warriors to do that. It was a game to us." The last bit he said slowly, the words drawling out of his mouth, reluctant to form for fear of what might happen.

Bulma wiped her nose with the sleeve of her grubby hoodie, and turned towards him, forcing his heart rate to quicken. He knew he shouldn't be telling her any of this, but the words just seemed to keep winding up his throat, begging to be released.

"I was six when Frieza took me away from Vegeta-sei, after murdering my failure of a father, after raping and slaughtering my mother before my juvenile eyes. After that, I was conditioned to believe that my planet had been corrupt, that it needed to be brought down. I grew up pretending to believe every single drop Frieza dribbled, and went on through the years being trained, beaten until inches from death, mutilated, and …"

She had moved across the crypt, sitting cross-legged in front of him, no emotion on her face. "You're hurt," she said, reaching for his face, where Raditz had elbowed him.

He leaned towards the outside, evading her touch. He didn't want her to touch him; not after last time. His eyes were drawn to her glossy lips that were moist from her sadness, and he tried to recall the perfect feel of them against his own, how soft and hungry they were, how he had her trapped in his desperate possession for those few feverish seconds. For that moment, nothing, other than the feel of her body against his, was on his mind. It was like airing out an old, dust infested room, and being able to inhale deeply the new, clean oxygen.

"I'm fine," he grumbled after a while.

Her listless eyes trailed the length of his body, landing and widening precisely on the metal ring he had trapped around his ankle. His mouth became dry as she shuffled over to it, leaned closer, scrunching her face up in concentration. Delicately, she placed her nimble hands onto the anklet, sending a warm spasm up his body, and she picked it and tried to move it, curiosity blazing in her eyes. The heat he was picking up was immeasurable. He wanted to move away from her, but remained rooted to the ground, like her touch was so physically strong that it overpowered his own strength.

She stopped, and peeked at him from under her mangled hair. "Every anklet is unique to each team," she said, rubbing the metal in a slow rhythm. "Chichi's was an entirely different type of metal, holding different compounds. It's as if they're like a living organism attached to each of us to match something … There must be another reason, but what?" her voice trailed off as contemplation consumed her.

Vegeta forced himself back to the surface, and drew his knee up to his chest, away from her frivolous prodding, catching her off guard, making her shoulders jump.

"None of that matters," he said, biting down on the curiosity behind her theory. It was clear that her scientific genius was not going to allow her to sit back and accept the mechanics of the anklet, but what good was going to come out of it? No matter what theory she spewed, it wasn't going to remove the damn thing, was it?

"You should've let me go," she said, her voice stern.

"You can go now, if you wish. I promise I won't stop you," he said contemptuously.

She sneered, turning her head away. "And if I did-"

"You would suffer an excruciating death far worse than any you've witnessed so far."

"I know," she said with a sick determination in her eyes.

He huffed, an unwarranted anger brewing in his chest.

"We're of a different planet, but it seems that you think I share the same customs as you."

She blinked, lifting her head up, catching his gaze.

"What was your planet like?" she said.

He stared, dumbfounded by her unrelenting curiosity, and slightly impressed by her persistence. But the latter was minimal. "I can't remember."

"There must be something you remember."

He sighed, looked away, and uncrossed his arms, feeling the powerful pull of his back muscles. Thoughts of home seldom occurred to him. It was too far back into the inexistent past for him to think about them. A fog of floating thoughts, neither clear nor visible was all he could see when conjuring up thoughts of home. And a deep pit in his gut, the outer circle rotting and corroding into fleshy chunks, became wider every time he tried to access those thoughts. It was pointless.

"Most of my memories were erased when I was a boy," he said, placing his hands awkwardly at his sides, flexing his palms.

"Oh," she said, her gaze sinking to the floor.

As the sun rose from the other side of the planet, the two of them sat, staring into the clustered expanse of the graveyard, neither wanting to interrupt the silence. Despite his bodies' inquisitions, Vegeta remained focused on the outside, rather than on Bulma's energy flickering up and down. Was she ill? Would she die? Did it matter? He glanced at her. She was weakening faster than he had anticipated, but the reason behind it was unknown. Earthlings were weak, true. They weren't this weak, though, deteriorating physically and mentally within a day. It became apparent when he felt how fragile her ribs were as he held her back, the pain failing to stop her from struggling to escape. But with a day to go, wasn't that what he wanted? In a matter of hours, Raditz would return with the Dragon Ball, and Vegeta would have to decide what to do next.

His head suddenly buzzed, making him grimace in pain, the sound of wiry venom ringing in his ears.

Bulma looked at him quizzically, her fingers locking together.

Vegeta stood up, clamping his skull and hunching over in pain. "No." He shook his head, and clutched his stomach. "Get out of my head!" The drilling in his mind continued, strangling the oxygen from his brain, enveloping him in darkness. The smell of burning flesh stung his nostrils as a painful memory tried to surface. And then it stopped. Everything settled, and Bulma's hands were on him, her fingers wrapping around his, easing his hands from his head. The early sun tickled the left side of his face as his features relaxed.

Chest rising up and down with heavy exhales, Vegeta fell backwards, hitting the wall, before sliding back down it. It was time.

The sight of her bloodied leg and torn jeans kept him steady, before he opened his mouth, trying to retract the words before he could even say them. "Frieza is coming."

"What?" she uttered, her voice a distant echo. "How do you know this?"

He frowned, regaining his composure, ashamed that she had witnessed his weakness. "That's not what matters—"

"Of course it's what matters," she shrieked, stomping away to other side of the crypt and back again, reaching him with more determination. "Vegeta, how do you know that?"

He shot up, and leered over her tiny frame. "You are testing my patience, Earthling."

"Oh, right. I see. I'm testing your patience? This isn't all about you. I need to know what's going on if my life is on the line!"

"Shut up, before—"

"Do your worst. Haven't you noticed? We're going to die anyway. Frieza showing up is only going to help speed it up, and you know what? Good," she said, her fists clenched at her sides. She'd snapped as easily as a frozen twig.

The impulse to strike crackled in his knuckles with one hundred degree heat, but he stood still, absorbing her words like a child, like the child he was when Frieza first abducted him.

"What aren't you telling me?" she said softly.

He laughed, his lips curling over his gums. "Do you think I'm going to discuss anything with the likes of you?"

"Since starting this game, I haven't expected you to do anything for me, but—"

"Be quiet," he roared into her face, but she didn't move, didn't even blink. She just stared at him.

"What now?" she said, a blue fire blazing in her eyes.

His hands would not leave his sides, like they had been sewn into them with a metal thread. "You have no idea what you're doing," he said, his voice low and dangerous.

Finally, she looked away, allowing his anger to subside a little.

"I have no choice but to trust you, Vegeta. And if there's something vital …" She waited for him to yell again. Instead he turned his back on her.

Moments passed, precious seconds going by, slipping through his fingers and into the clutches of his tormentor. He raked a hand through his brittle hair, and decided that nothing mattered anymore. Maybe she was right.

"I had finished training for the day—a fourteen hour session, sparring with weakling upon weakling. I had triumphed, prided myself. I was sixteen." He squeezed his eyes shut as the painful memory returned. "Just as I was retiring to my chambers, I was ordered by Zarbon to retreat to the training room, where Frieza was waiting for me. Frieza challenged me, beat me into the ground and stood on me, like I was a piece of shit." The crypt had grown deathly silent. If he hadn't have known, it would have felt like he was confessing to himself. "I woke up in a rejuvenation tank, with a handful of frightened fools scrutinising me and conversing amongst one another. Two days passed and I healed of my wounds—I was like a brand new toy again, only, adjustments had been made. Whenever I let my guard down, his voice would linger in the back of my mind. Whenever I plotted to escape, he would whisper from the depths of my conscious."

"Vegeta—"

"Frieza is in my head. It's an unbreakable bond," he said, spinning round to face her, seeing her wide, watery eyes staring back at him. "That," he started, "is how I know."

The words took a while to sink in, and until then, all Bulma could do was stare back into the eyes of the warrior she had falsely put her trust in. Yes, it was true that he had saved her a couple of times, and she was far too intelligent to think that he actually cared about her, reaching for her when she needed him. But, always in the hollow of her mind, she acknowledged that it was all part of the charade, all part of the plot to this sickening story. Kissing him, seeing into his soul for a fraction of a second, despite his laconic traits, had loosened the screws on the rusty gate that kept her sanity. Somehow, she thought he cared. Everything was a hoax. What was real, and what was fabricated? The notion of being childishly naive in all of this made her knees weak and buckle. But in his eyes, she still saw a deep and sombre truth, somewhere, where no other person could see it. What did that mean?

"Frieza can read your thoughts?" she whispered, more of a statement than a question.

"Not all of them. After a few years, I learnt how to keep certain thoughts beyond his reach, but it takes a lot of restraint and strength." The anguish in his features disappeared, retrieving a solid look of disapproval.

She didn't even know where to start. So many possibilities sprang to mind, like: How much did Frieza know? Was Vegeta on Frieza's side? Did every warrior have this bond? Is that why he sent Raditz and Chichi off alone? Because he knew they were going to die?

But, then, another question crept from the back of her mind. Was Vegeta as much of a victim in this as she had been?

"Does he know you've told me?"

After a few seconds, he shook his head. "No. He's on his way here. He'll have more important things to do than listen to me."

"The Orling…" she said, her eyes frosting over in horror. "I could communicate with him telepathically. It's the same thing, isn't it? Except, he spoke to me, before I could allow him…"

Her hands trembled and her world spun into a spiral of lies. What was happening?

"Get a hold of yourself," he spat, bringing her back to life.

The dawn brought on the day, and the afternoon bled through the morning gleam, blessing the crypt with an entire panel of light. The walls were chipped marble, glossy and shimmering, with flecks of brown and black, and the two coffins in the centre were black granite, almost like charcoal. A flash of panic struck Bulma hard in her temple, as a huge energy force flooded her mind, accompanied by a tiny life force, which was so weak she could barely feel it in her fingertips. The smallest energy force was shrinking rapidly, shrivelling away into a pip. All the questions she wanted to ask, and all the answers she wanted to receive were drowned out by one name.

Chichi.