Gohan had begun reading the diary Tora had left him the day they entered the Room of Spirit and Time. The first few pages had been bread and baking recipes for the Senzu-flour for their stay. Tora hadn't scribbled over the failed recipes, but did write them as 'too hard' 'over cooked' and other mistakes written over those tests, until a recipe was deemed 'acceptable' with proper dosages adjusted. There were a few more blank pages (Tora had clearly divided the journal beforehand) before the journal proper, and in those blank pages, a folded paper with his name caught his attention.
Tora had written him a letter. Which is why Gohan closed the diary and decided it was private, for his eyes only when his father asked about it. Goku was thankfully a carefree man who didn't question and didn't pry into anyone's secrets. Gohan decided to read the letter during his first night.
'To Son Gohan-sama,
Dear Gohan-san,
Please excuse how messy my writing is and how little decorum I have given this letter.
Our circumstances may not be the same, and it might be presumptuous to think my experiences are worth your time, but perhaps this journal will be of use to make your own path with Son Goku-san's guidance.
You will find a list of my shorthands on the last page.
Praying for super Saiyan to not consume you, I entrust you with my bare heart over the past year.
Affectionately,
Tora'
Clearly Tora was organized, as the journaling was properly visually divided, but the actual reading was confusing for the nine year old at first. The teenager had written symbols, charts, arrows, but very little actual text, at least for the first few double pages. Gohan soon understood that a double page covered two weeks, and was meant to be read horizontally from edge to edge. The two rows across both pages each represented one week, leaving invisible columns to represent the days. The boy had to go back and forth with the shorthands Tora used to make sense of the notes, but little by little he got the gist of it, working through it like a puzzle, or a secret coded message. He'd spend the first month reading the diary every night, trying to understand what the other went through, as he himself was training to become super Saiyan.
The first week had about fifteen little straight lines crossing over the days, roughly separated by equal spacing, which Gohan understood as Tora's sleep from the shorthands. 'Tora-san used the spread as an actual time measurement, so this meant he slept this amount over this week…'. The second week had similar little bars, unaligned with the first ones (Tora didn't have a regular sleep schedule, but mostly managed to sleep at least twice per 24 hours), but there was also another much longer one that started on day 8. That longer line didn't overlap with Tora's and was marked with a different line thickness. Gohan realized, after checking with the last page of the journal, that it was Vegeta's sleep. 'So Vegeta didn't sleep at all during the first week?' Gohan wondered, but attributed it to space travel and he remembered how Vegeta hadn't 'slept in a while', back on their alliance on Namek. A quick flip through the following few pages, and Gohan confirmed the pattern: Tora had short, regular naps, Vegeta took longer rests, but further apart. And neither slept at the same time, and Gohan wondered if it had been a deliberate choice from either or both of them.
Other symbols and the occasional number indicated physical training on Tora's part, growing in intensity as the weeks flew by. With Goku's passing comment, Gohan eventually understood some numbers indicating distances were how far Trunks had ventured in the strange void, and how it made training harder. The further deep in the whiteness, the harder the conditions. And a strange symbol happened every month or so. The index indicated Mafuba (with syllables). Gohan remembered the technique Tenshinhan and Piccolo had taught Tora on the night of his birthday, and figured that was probably it, as Tora had said something about 'training on his own'.
There were also attempts at judging how strong, fast, resilient and skilled Tora and Vegeta had become in comparison to the Cyborgs, but Tora struck down those attempted analyses after five months and wrote: 'Unable to know how much we are improving as we cannot face anyone else but each other. Bulma-san's Gravity Room' computer would have been useful to measure objectively.'
A strange symbol, a star, happened right before Vegeta's first sleep, and flipping through the pages, it didn't appear again until at least a month in. The star Tora drew had been circled for the first one, then it was either circled or crossed through. It was also usually accompanied by a straight line.
"Ah, these are whenever Tora-san and Vegeta-san fought, the line here is how long it lasted, and who won." He understood when going back to the shorthand. Apart from that first one, Tora had lost every fight for at least two months.
The last fight of month number two had no winning or losing symbol, but Tora had filled the lines of the star scribble. A quick look at the index informed Gohan that full stars meant the fight had happened as super Saiyan, and that the last star of month number two was actually a draw, as it was neither circled nor crossed.
After they started sparring as super Saiyan, Tora began to win some fights. Gohan also noted how after every time Tora won, Vegeta had a sleep period, but it wasn't the case for the other way around. The fights were daily, and they had replaced training. The length of those fights was more accurate over time; they got longer. Month three had also more words, more thoughts actually written, and they grew sometimes desperate, sometimes determined. Tora had scribbled down some of the most negative thoughts, but not enough so they'd be unreadable, and the occasional complaint.
'The transformation makes me blood-thirsty, and reckless.'
'Am I becoming like Vegeta-san?'
'I loathe the pleasure I am getting from this.'
'It's a sacrifice I must make. I am happy to do it.'
'What matters is saving this world.'
'I cannot keep this up, but I must control it at all costs.'
The fifth month had a larger word written on it: 'Hope!', and less fighting. Tora or Vegeta must have called it quits to rest, because there was at least a week with no fighting.
'I must win, else Gohan-san's sacrifice will have been for nothing. I must honor his memory.'
'The path forward is a compromise. To go beyond super Saiyan, I must reassess my philosophy and accept all aspects of my heritage.'
The last fight of the fifth month caught Gohan's eye because it looked so different. Tora marked it as a loss and then marked he had slept for a longer period, but an interrogation mark about when the fight ended and when the sleep began caught his eye. Tora had also never slept that long in one go. Gohan realized Tora never slept more than two hours in one go, but not this time.
"Tora-san lost consciousness," Gohan whispered while putting his fingers on that peculiar star, realizing that every previous loss on his part was probably because he gave up. Something must have happened during that fight. There were also more thoughts written just afterwards.
'It was a mistake trying to repress super Saiyan, to deny or 'chain' this part of me. I am both Saiyan and Earthling. My path must reconcile both. I can only hope Gohan-san will forgive me.'
'The one who will save my world is 'me'.'
'I knew 'what' to do (compromise) but Father showed me 'how' [an arrow pointed at the fight in which Tora lost consciousness]. We talked. I think I figured it out. When he wakes up, I will show him.'
An arrow pointed at the next fight in which Tora 'showed his father', and another note was written about it afterwards.
'Father had gone beyond super Saiyan long before me. That person knew everything, even my own limitations and my struggles. I truly was a fool.'
'I will make it up to him for having wasted so much of his time.'
"Tora-san accepted Vegeta-san as his father…" Gohan knew the weight of that decision, how Tora insisted Vegeta and Bulma were different versions of his parents, but not his parents. The writing of the word was hesitant too.
The next two months had far longer fights, they looked and felt different, and they were more equal in win rates. Gohan found himself rooting for his friend, cheering him on as he was imagining what happened behind those sparse words. Individual training had also started again, and if the routines each of them had established, it was clear whoever fought just after training on his own lost the subsequent fight, because the fight always interrupted the other's training.
"It's like they took turns taking a handicap, here Vegeta-san must have been tired, and here Tora-san was the one who was tired," Gohan observed after reading those couple of months for the fourth time.
Then by the middle of the eighth month, everything changed. One week of absolutely nothing, then regular individual training on Tora's part. No fights for over six weeks, but regular sleep cycles. 'A setback?,' Gohan wondered. The change was abrupt. There was no explanation. The fights resumed, but Tora wrote 'Ki - distance only. No contact.' on those pages. And Tora lost almost all of those battles. But Gohan was proud to see his friend try and try again, not giving up, the fights becoming longer each time was proof of improvement. Tora still wrote some thoughts, about his identity, his compromise between his nature as an earthling and as a Saiyan, his slow acceptance of Vegeta as a father all while recognizing his actual father had died long ago. There was more hope, more confidence.
'I must use both facets of my heritage, and not let them hinder one another.'
'The way forward seems to be a matter of refining the cooperation between my instincts and my will.'
'Son-san and Father live to fight. To test themselves, to face challenges. I do not. Gohan-san did not, either.'
'My technique is still lacking (Father isn't here to teach me), but I believe I can just overpower the Cyborgs and Androids now. I will win.'
'I will not let anyone else die.'
The last double page, however, the normal sparring sessions resumed, and intensified. Instead of regular individual training, almost two thirds of their awake time was spent fighting, with fairly equal results (and the occasional draw). The last three days were written off as 'rest'.
Gohan also noted how Tora barely used ideograms, and those used sometimes didn't have the right stroke order, which Gohan found strange considering how formal and nuanced the teen's vocabulary was. The boy knew Tora hadn't simplified his vocabulary (and his writing) for his sake. He just lacked the writing skills and Gohan imagined what kind of constant war the teenager had lived in to not learn how to write as maturely as he spoke or thought.
Two months in, re-reading over and over again, Gohan used the notes to find resolve and understand how his doubts were normal, and even Tora, who had killed Freeza without a sweat, who had faced Piccolo without flinching, who had fought on equal footing with his father, also doubted. Surely as the letter had stated, their circumstances were different, and the routines Vegeta and Tora had established weren't to be copied, but it was his state of mind and desire to protect everyone that transpired. Gohan agreed with this goal, it was why he wanted to achieve the state despite the warning from his future self and Tora begging him not to.
The first step of protecting everyone was to actually manage to become a super Saiyan, and do so without experiencing the horrors of losing someone. Out of the three he knew, two had to go through that emotional trauma, and the third one was Vegeta, and how he reached super Saiyan was a mystery. So Gohan and Goku tried different avenues until the 'need' arose.
The anger that came with the idea of a monster -Freeza- killing everyone he ever loved almost achieved it, but he couldn't maintain it. The power was there, the need wasn't.
And that's why Gohan -the older one- hadn't trained Tora to become a super Saiyan. That Gohan couldn't and wouldn't subject his pupil, his friend, to that trauma.
The need to beat an extremely powerful and dangerous enemy worked best for Goku, who wanted to avenge Krillin first and foremost, but Gohan wasn't like that. 'He's not like Son-san nor is he like Vegeta-san, he's like me.' Tora's words echoed in Gohan's mind.
And they were indeed similar, in more ways than just because they were both half-breeds.
Gohan remembered Tora bowing to ask them to not let him achieve the transformation. Through the journal, the boy understood how hard it was for Tora to reconcile being an Earthling and a Saiyan at the same time, highlighting how different Goku and Vegeta's goals had been. And that now, he had gone beyond super Saiyan to protect both worlds.
'I will not let anyone else die.' Tora had written.
'Gohan distracted me and knocked me unconscious.. I was a liability.' Tora had said, and Gohan saw it differently, during his own thinking.
"No, that wasn't it. I wanted to protect you, Tora-san." Gohan whispered.
The powerlessness he'd felt ever since Piccolo died, the self-loathing for not having been able to do anything against the Androids, against Freeza, against Nappa and Vegeta, against Recoome... Not having been able to fight alongside everyone, not having been able to protect Piccolo. Failure.
This was the right trigger. Instead of imagining his anger at seeing everyone dead by the hand of an enemy, he saw himself powerless, forced to watch as the imaginary enemy harmed them. Gohan saw himself break through invisible chains, jumping in to defend them, his mother, his father, his friends, to protect Piccolo, to protect Tora.
Gohan ascended, and Goku was proud.
Their path to go beyond started immediately, and getting used to the state was their next step. Gohan decided to document on the blank pages of the journal, using the same symbols and organization Tora had already created. Gohan ended up writing much more than the teenager did, turning his own pages into an actual diary.
They left after a little over ten months in the Room of Spirit and Time. They had mastered super Saiyan enough so that it became their default state.
"I can still sense Cell, and he's much stronger than before, what happened?" Goku asked when they were met by Tenshinhan, Piccolo and Trunks. Their energy felt so different, and the stakes had drastically changed.
"Cell absorbed both Cyborgs and will host a tournament to decide the fate of the Earth." Piccolo was the first to give the key points to Goku. Everyone loathed the new circumstances, and the tension was clear.
While the 'adults' were talking, Gohan and Trunks locked eyes with each other. Gohan was in super Saiyan, but it didn't feel like it. Goku as well, actually. The blonde short hair and green eyes brought back so many memories that Trunks almost forgot the notebook in the other's hand, the failures of the previous day, and the idea she had had about improving her technique and tactics. 'He looks so much like my Gohan… And his power and Son-san's...'
"Trunks."
"Mh?" She finally reacted to Tenshinhan's voice and looked back at him, completely having missed the conversation about the TV news giving all the details of the tournament. "My apologies. Yes?"
"We'll use the Room right now, since Gohan and Goku left earlier than anticipated. Piccolo and I will take turns overseeing your idea."
While they talked, Goku changed back into his gi. Trunks didn't miss Piccolo's glance her way when asked by Gohan to be given an outfit similar to his own (and not his father's), remembering their 'he knows, he loves you too' exchange over two years prior. She looked at Gohan's bright and happy demeanor when wearing the same purple gi and white cape, and her heart was calm. Gohan had kept his kindness and innocence after all.
"I thought only two people could go in at the time?" Goku asked while securing his belt.
"That's because of supplies. I only drink water. I will stay there for a whole year, but those two will leave in two hours." Piccolo smirked and went on his way to the Chamber, followed by Tenshinhan.
Trunks was about to follow them, when Gohan rushed over.
"Tora-san," he called out, journal in hand, and Trunks turned to meet him. "It wasn't presumptuous at all, it was really helpful. Thank you. I tried writing like you..." He hesitated a moment, then offered the journal back, a faint hue of red on his nose. "I want to wait here for you, if that isn't a bother."
Trunks took the journal, then glanced back, the other two were waiting for her. She gave Gohan a kind smile. "I will see you soon then," they had so much to talk about, but now wasn't the time. She knew Vegeta would show up just from Goku's ki emerging, and she didn't want to be there for that. She quickly made her way into the Room with Tenshinhan and Piccolo, ready to test her idea with the other two.
Piccolo had intended to get stronger after Vegeta had failed to destroy Cell, but Tenshinhan believed he wasn't going to be a match for Cell, no matter what he did. Being able to help Trunks was a way of making sure they had better odds against Cell.
The few weeks in the Time Chamber with Piccolo and Tenshinhan were awkward for Trunks; these two were unrelated strangers, but they had been willing to help her. Piccolo quickly stated he needed no bed and he didn't sleep laying down anyway, and to not bother him, he would come to them when needed.
It took less than an hour for Trunks to organize their stay as she'd done for a full year, unpack and set up the generator and her computer in the living quarters. The drawback of her set up was that her processor wasn't powerful enough to run 'Sixteen' as a program, which was a disappointment, but she still explained the data, videos and analysis of their techniques to Tenshinhan and Piccolo, and how she intended to approach the problem of her lack of knowledge as a Brief, and not as a Saiyan.
In the white void, she started with what she knew: the Masenko. Gohan had taught her the technique before his death, but she didn't really get it, and both her new mentors explained how Trunks just didn't properly channel the ki to multiply the devatation output. Which is why Sixteen had said Trunks was bad at ki management. An observation both other men shared and Trunks tried really hard to accept as factual and not insulting.
"Well that's an easy fix," Tenshinhan noted, seeing the poor result compared to the power Trunks had actually used. "Yes, formal training is what you need. Can only go so far with raw talent."
Tenshinhan demonstrated by extending his finger, building ki, and blasting a beam into the white void. "You need to pull from your core, but before you release it, you have to amplify and convert it."
Trunks frowned at the form, it reminded her of Seventeen and Eighteen's killing techniques, but she did her best to push the memories aside and observe, understand, then try to imitate, not with her fingers but with her open hand. Gohan didn't formally know how to do it himself, and had never seen Trunks' attempts as being flawed because they mostly focused on contact combat with the Cyborgs, and in their training. 'No wonder I was always exhausted after using too much ki,' she concluded. She used to just throw her channeled ki without transforming it properly first. As usual, she compensated lack of technique with raw power output.
When Trunks went on to take her first nap, she realized the bed smelled different than when she had used it herself. She took a moment to try and breathe in and put her finger on the scent, until she recognized Gohan's. Mr Popo hadn't 'reseted' the chamber, as he had done before Goku and Gohan entered. She ended up accepting she missed Gohan, both her version and the one in this world, and slept with her timer on and a sense of safety she had long forgotten about.
Working on actual martial arts techniques and tactics proved more difficult. She could overpower both Piccolo and Tenshinhan easily if she transformed, and all three of them knew it, and fighting without tapping into her potential was a waste of time. The two more experienced fighters came to the conclusion that, since they couldn't be as strong or fast as her in such a short amount of time, Trunks needed to get weaker, which is why they settled on teaching her some version of the Multiform Technique. Even if she couldn't master it as well as Tenshinhan, being able to form a clone that divided her power and speed was enough to either give her a training partner at her level, or weaken her enough to be able to fight Piccolo and it being a challenge she'd have to overcome with technique, and not brute force or speed.
In a couple of days of intensive ki exercises, Trunks managed to properly throw far, far more powerful ki blasts without actually sacrificing that much of her own energy. Years of fighting in close combat still conditioned her to favor that fighting style, but it became easier to integrate ki now it didn't drain her. She trained with no target as her aim had already improved with Vegeta. The Multiform proved much, much more difficult, but eventually she managed to make one sole, mostly functional clone for the purpose they showed it to her.
"Well it takes years to master, but this is enough for the goal of weakening you," Tenshinhan commented as Trunks expressed disappointment at not being able to replicate what she saw on Sixteen's videos and with Tenshinhan and Piccolo's demonstrations, and the descriptives she read on the files.
"Good enough. Now unless you're sleeping, eating or meditating, you're fighting either of us," Piccolo had decided. Trunks knew it was going to be intensive, but that sounded like hell. She still accepted it without complaint. She thought fondly of Gohan, who had told her how in the six months prior to Vegeta and Nappa's arrival, this had been his training regimen in the wilderness.
When she and Tenshinhan ate, they watched the Tenkaichi Budokai fights on the computer. Tenshinhan was thoughtful enough to comment on the fights and some martial arts techniques as he learned them, explaining weight distribution and channeling to strengthen a physical attack or soak a particular hit. The latter two she already did instinctively, but she could amplify the effect if she put more conscious thought into it.
When she wasn't actively facing either of them, nor was she sleeping or eating, to let her body and mind recover she decided to do some katas with her sword, even if its edge had been broken. She knew she had missed it when she was with Vegeta, as she had left the sword at Capsule Corp. She didn't notice Tenshinhan's eyes on her the third day when she went out for the first time. He saw Trunks go out with the sword and sheath, and decided to pay extra close attention; he promised himself he would show Chaozu the absolute confusion on the teenager's face discovering the extra 'gift', and there it was. She looked absolutely baffled to see her sword was repaired, out of nowhere. 'When the fuck did that happen?' . Trunks checked, touched where it was broken, then the other side, and looked like a massive question mark. Eventually she concluded the sword itself wasn't going to give her answers, so she just did her katas. She really did miss the calming, blank-mind exercise. Piccolo seemed to consider it to be 'meditating' and didn't comment on 'slacking off'.
What followed for the rest of the stay was intensive martial arts training. Guards, blocks, counters, positioning, reflexes, combat sense, feints and reading the opponent. Piccolo and Tenshinhan took turns to absolutely drill the younger fighter: her diminished state thanks to Multiform made her slow and far less dangerous, even as a super Saiyan, and since she didn't attack to kill, but to learn, it worked much better with her mindset. Tenshinhan caught on how the younger one thought things through, so he offered to work through it as physical quizzes. He'd show an attack on his own clone, and asked Trunks to explain how the clone should react. Trunks appreciated the study material, and soon enough, she was on the receiving end to put into application the knowledge she'd understood. She practiced diligently and talked through the choices. Why block with her right hand and not her left, where to create opportunities, why push a hit upwards or downwards, how to use their size differences. The Brief study brain worked best, it was a matter of being faster at decision making on the fly.
The clone she made each time was to just sit there to watch and take notes of her own positioning flaws, so she wasn't as unfocused as she could've been if she had to actively fight with the two bodies. The clone's role was mainly to divide her power, after all, but might as well make good use of the extra pair of eyes.
Gohan's journaling, which she got around to checking, was descriptive about his state in super Saiyan, how his dad had gone 'beyond' and grown very strong, but also 'extremely muscular and much slower', and they had to start all over again. Trunks had already discarded a similar path in her first stay, she knew muscle mass wasn't was she needed and valued stamina and speed above raw strength. She knew her weakness was elsewhere and she read with interest how Gohan perceived the 'try and stay in super Saiyan at all times to get used to the state as second nature'. Goku was incredible when it came to martial arts, after all, and Trunks admired it. The blood-thirst that came with the transformation had all but vanished from the Sons. This was why, when they came out, they felt so relaxed and powerful at the same time. Trunks knew she was far too conflicted and short on time to actually try that route, at least for the time being, but she circled it as something to go back to, eventually.
"Few martial artists have your level of focus and mental strength, you've progressed a lot in such a short time," Tenshinhan commented near the end of their stay.
"I am still far from a match for either of you, but I guess I would have a shot at the Tenkaichi," she answered while cooking. She was far from Chaozu's skill level but she was happy to take over that chore as a way to thank him. And appreciated how Tenshinhan had eaten her very basic meals with good grace. She'd have to think of a way to properly express her gratitude to Piccolo, later on.
"You were already better than when you fought me at first. Despite all his flaws, that bastard Vegeta is actually a tactical genius, and you'd would have been blind to not pick up anything from spending a full year with him." Piccolo commented, passing by to get himself some water, and actually sat to talk with them.
"I wish I had learnt more from him, but he's not.. 'agreeable'," she reused a previous adjective Tenshinhan had used.
"Your fight with Cell showed how much you absorbed from him," Piccolo confirmed.
"Perhaps, but I failed." She served both plates and sat down to eat.
"Thanks for the food," Tenshinhan accepted his plate and ate. "You failed because Vegeta is a dickhead."
"Saiyan genes. That's the kind of man he is," she sighed and ate. She didn't want to mourn that failure any longer. "You've both gone above and beyond to give me the tools to progress, and I don't have enough words to thank you"
"Can't speak for Piccolo, but no need to thank me, we share the same goal."
"I have no use of your thanks, kid."
"Well you have them regardless." Eating and discussing with the two men felt relaxing, comparatively to the year she spent with Vegeta. The white void was almost bearable. Of course she still wore her binder whenever not in bed or in bath, which was far longer than she should, which is why she adjusted them looser and wore looser clothes as well.
"You're approaching your flaws in an interesting way."
"Mhm," Trunks agreed while eating, then swallowed. "I have an analytical mind when my blood isn't boiling. Once I saw the data and heard Sixteen's analysis, I had a 'Brief' moment." She pointed at her computer with the fork.
"Sixteen's with Capsule Corp now?" Tenshinhan asked with a raised eyebrow.
"He is. It seems Gero designed him with 'Son Goku is a danger to Earth, ergo I must kill Son Goku' as its core programming, and Cell is currently a bigger threat to the planet than Son-san, so his artificial intelligence sort of decided our side was the logical decision, after Seventeen and Eighteen joined forces with Cell. The future engineer in me finds it fascinating, but I have no idea how it actually works."
"The Cyborgs didn't know Cell existed, actually, and didn't want to be absorbed."
"And Sixteen didn't fight either of us. He fought Cell to protect Seventeen and Eighteen." Tenshinhan observed in addition to Piccolo's previous words.
"One would believe his creations would cooperate with each other, strangely. Sixteen likes nature and seems eager to help. I hope Bulma-san can repair him, he is resourceful." She paused a moment, after having finished her plate, and seeing Tenshinhan's empty one, she offered seconds. Tenshinhan refused, so she went to do the dishes. "I'll have to see with Son-san and Gohan-san what strategy they have in mind to destroy Cell."
Both men hoped Goku did have a strategy in mind, but they also realistically believed he probably only counted on 'fighting the guy and make a strategy on the spot'. Neither said a word.
After packing everything, Trunks and Tenshinhan shook Piccolo's hand and wished him good luck for the rest of the year. Deep down, Trunks hoped those few weeks had helped them and wasn't only for her own benefit. She also bitterly resented the Cyborgs of her world for having deprived Gohan and herself of such great men in their lives. As she closed the door behind her, she thought about the older version of her that Cell had killed, and how he probably hadn't benefited from any of this either.