"Beware of the edge, little girl," the tall man with bright red spikes told her.

His emerald eyes without pupils reminded her of Gohan's, when she saw him transform into a super Saiyan and fight the Cyborgs the first time. The strange jewelry on his skull and the long, pointy ears were only further proof of his alien origins. Tora nodded and took the sword out of the sheath he was holding to her. The weapon was much taller than her, but she didn't expect it to be that light. Still she held it with both hands and took a good look at it, then took a few steps away to try and swing a little, carefully so. It was a precious belonging, after all. The sun was bright, the Cyborgs had been quiet for a few months.

Her mother gave a light clap, proud of her daughter trying something new, sitting on a bench in the former gardens. The paler, tall alien was sitting near her and looking fondly over how bright Trunks looked. Her oversized blue Capsule Corp long sleeve shirt looked more like a dress on her, but with the black shorts underneath, it didn't matter. A blink later, Trunks' field of vision went from that bright peaceful afternoon, to a massacre, the peaceful feelings replaced by a sense of dread and painful frustration. She had just struck something, someone, and red blood dripped from the blade all the way down her hands. She could smell it, as much as she could smell the salty tears on her cheeks.

Tora woke up in cold sweats, the sword close against her chest reminding her of the reality. She wasn't there anymore. The different kis in the household also grounded her, and she sighed, cursing. With Trunks, she had deactivated the alarms from her watch, but now she was back on her camp bed, the nightmares had returned. This one though, it had been a while. She grabbed the clothes she had prepared the night prior and stepped out holding them close to hide her chest, in case she crossed paths with someone on her way to the bathroom. It was well past dawn already, she cursed.

Trunks and Gohan went upstairs when they felt her ki panic, the two of them knowing about the nightmares, but when she saw them in the corridor, Trunks made a comment about the bedhead and Tora scoffed, before Gohan could even ask if everything was ok. Tora silently thanked the distraction, though, as Gohan worrying about her broke her heart.

"Morning to you too," she dismissed Trunks' comment but the knowing smile shared between the two said far more. She ran her free hand in her hair and tried making it look somewhat presentable. "My apologies, I overslept, I will be right down once I clean up."

"It's only 8:30, Tora-san, it's fine. Bulma-san is still asleep."

Of course she was. The poor woman had years of sleep debt left over to pay, so Trunks let her sleep in and took care of the guests as he woke up earlier.

"Toast?" Trunks asked.

"Toast and coffee," she confirmed, gave them both a warmer smile, and disappeared into the bathroom.

Bulma didn't leave her bedroom until well past nine and after scolding Trunks for not waking her, she accepted that she had needed the sleep and enjoyed how the coffee woke her up.

By ten, everyone had eaten and sat in the living room, Tora taking the armchair with the sword across the armrests, somewhat ready to tell the story she'd promised. Her computer was out of its capsule, she had browsed some old pictures hidden within different folders on a chair she pulled nearby so she could access it without it being on her lap. Gohan hadn't returned the dogtags yet, and truth be told, Tora realized she wouldn't resent him if he kept them, only worrying about the consequences for the boy when she inevitably left him and his world.

Gohan and Trunks had sat by the coffee table, Krillin, Dende and Bulma occupied the couch. By Tora's request, a fresh pot of coffee was made, as this was going to be long. Tora started once they were all settled.

"I suppose it's useful for you to know about it, in case the situation happens to either of your worlds. I am afraid it's not a happy story, so please forgive me if I take some breaks as I dig into these old memories."

Her gaze was unfocused, fixated on an invisible point in front of her. She didn't want to read everyone's reactions.

"This sword belonged to.. to the first man I killed."

She let the information sink in, ignoring the emotions surrounding her, drank a bit of coffee, then carried on. She spoke fondly and softly of the person whose death she had just announced had been her own doing.

"His name was Tapion and he was an alien from a planet named Konats. He was a kind man with a strict sense of duty, who had been locked away in a magical item as he had been.. I would say cursed but I know that isn't how he saw it. Opening that box to free him from his millennia old slumber was our first mistake."

She shook her head slowly, the few strands that didn't make it into her elastic swaying gently around.

"It happened when I was about seven. A small old-looking man named Hoi, with bright pink skin, black nails, tricked Gohan-san and I into applying our strength to open the sealed box. Said a hero had been locked away in it by the governing body of a faraway planet. Gohan-san was perhaps sixteen or seventeen at the time and with the Cyborgs rampaging all sorts of suburbs time and time again, the prospect of a strong ally was too good to pass on despite the red flags."

A slight sigh of regret, and Tora continued.

"Neither of us was powerful enough to open it with raw force, but we managed to understand how the box worked, and eventually we solved it. Tapion appeared and he was livid, demanding to be put back in. Even if we knew how to do that, the lock had been completely broken."

A little sip of coffee, and she took a glance at everyone who was listening with attention. She gave a slight smile to Trunks and Gohan in particular; while the child wasn't as touchy with her alternate older self as he was with her, he was still close and Trunks was happy to offer a comforting presence.

"It turns out Tapion and Minoshia, his sibling, fought a monster that was destroying their planet, and while they couldn't kill it, they held it down with magic flutes and a third hero cut the monster in half." She gave a slight tap to the sword, indicating it was the one used. "Each part was sealed into their bodies, but the monster kept trying to escape and be whole again. Tapion being the eldest was given the original sword, while another was made for Minoshia. The two of them were sealed in such boxes so the monster wouldn't break free, but it kept trying, because both halves were meant to be reunited. So they were sent away, to opposite directions of the universe so the monster would never rise again. And I see Bulma-san knows exactly where this is going," Tora couldn't help a slight smile, her alternative older mother knowing exactly how little peace Earth has had, regardless of its version.

"Geez it's like our planet is a magnet for trouble," she sighed.

"Long story short, a thousand years later, the old man had tracked down the second box; Tapion's, on Earth. He was seemingly part of the cohort that summoned the monster to begin with because.. whatever reasons, I guess." Tora shrugged, not knowing why the alien wanted to recreate the monster to begin with. "Tapion disposed of him as soon as he realized he had been the cause of it all, and ran off. And as I was a stubborn child who refuses being told no for no reason, especially with how strong he seemed, I decided to hunt him down. Gohan-san tried talking me out of it, he didn't owe us his help, after all he had been locked away for a reason. I didn't care and considering I wasn't allowed to fight the Cyborgs, I wanted to try and convince him, with food mind you, to help us out."

Tora couldn't help a smile at her own naivety. Food was her trading token and her carrot for just about anything, there was no reason for her to not extend that mindset to everyone else, at that age.

"Tapion wanted nothing to do with me. I didn't give up. Gohan-san refocused his energy on trying to track down the Cyborgs; at that time he actively sought them out. Mother couldn't keep me in the house."

Bulma rolled her eyes; she remembered the rascal Trunks had been at around that age, and of course there was no way for her to do anything about it. Tora and Trunks didn't miss it and the both of them gave her an apologetic smile.

"I am not sure how long it was before the first attack on West City started, but there was a lot of damage one night, and the thing attacking was invisible and had no ki. We thought it was the Cyborgs, but the Cyborgs usually do not attack at night."

Trunks and Bulma wanted to correct Tora, that there were no Cyborgs anymore, but they stopped themselves. For Tora, the Cyborgs were still a reality haunting her world, after all.

"The monster," Gohan deduced, and Tora nodded.

"When Gohan-san arrived hearing the radio calls, I focused on the survivors and he on the monster, but there was no use finding it, until it appeared. It looked like giant legs. Gohan-san tried to attack it, but he went right through it because- it became intangible. Then it vanished into mist and disappeared for a few days. Rinse and repeat. Overtime we noticed a pattern; the monster would wreak havoc, appear, then be frozen and disappear, and a sound would always reach my ears." Tora put her hands near her mouth and imitated someone playing a sort of transverse flute.

Dende and Krillin whispered a "ooohh" of realization.

"Tapion was using the magic flute?" Dende asked, and Tora nodded, confirming the guess.

"Gohan-san never heard it, for some reason."

"Strange," Bulma wondered. Tora would later wonder why, with what she knew, she guessed perhaps, just perhaps she had Saiyan ears, as she clearly didn't inherit their eyes like Gohan had.

"After a few weeks of bringing him food and tracking him down whenever he changed locations, eventually he accepted my stubborn self being around him. Considering it was the bottom half of the monster that was attacking, it meant Minoshia had been killed, and the old man just followed that phantasm to meet its other half. Tapion's flute repulsed that bottom half, so whenever he played, the legs would retreat and disappear for a while. As long as Tapion didn't sleep, the upper half was safely secured, sealed in his body, but the bottom half would appear and try to draw him out."

"So long as he didn't sleep?" Bulma asked, incredulous. "You said 'a few weeks'."

"That's torture," Krillin was horrified. He loved his sleep, and he fully understood what lack of sleep did to someone.

"It was better than letting the monster rampage your world," Trunks noted. Tora did mention Tapion had a strict sense of duty, so that was just a facet.

"He was exhausted," Tora looked down at the sword, confirming everyone's observations and how she wasn't wrong about the general time frame. "Mother managed to build him a room with the same properties as the box he was locked in, we had some of the materials. We actually shared a few days of peace," Tora smiled warmly at those fond memories. "That's when he told us of his name, his planet, the sword, the flute, his music, basically the old man's story was correct, he lied about his intentions but not about the facts and the story of the Legendary Heroes of Konats."

When asked why the old man lied or even wanted the monster to be free, Tora just shrugged: she had no idea.

"I was learning the piano, back then, so he taught me some of his melodies. With Mother, we transcribed them." She said so while reaching to her computer to play a digitized version of a soft melody. After hesitating a little, she detached her screen from the rest of the computer, tapped on an image and turned it around so the others could see the photo all while playing the looped sound.

The tall and slender alien was sitting on the closed grand piano, red Mohawk spikes falling over one side of his skull, bright green eyes without any pupils, a golden ornament reaching above his long and pointy ears, dressed in a washed out yellow/ochre short sleeve tee with some black letters on it, long jeans with a brown belt and comfortable, alien-looking boots up to his calf. Tapion balanced the sword between his knee and the ground, the exact same sword that looked perfectly appropriate for his height. The few ornaments on the scabbard matched the golden ornament that went around his skull from temple to temple. The hilt and guard itself didn't change, but the clipping system that Tora used to carry the sword on her back was different. Considering the belt Tapion was wearing, he was used to carrying the sword on his hip, not on his back. The fair-skinned man was looking over a child with a short lavender ponytail, a large blue t-shirt, back towards the camera, playing the piano with the same computer screen on the music rack to show digital transcripts. If anything, Tapion was looking over Trunks fondly and listening in on her work, and from the angle, she was looking back up at him.

"You were so small, Tora-san," Gohan was surprised and endeared, and Tora got a little red. "And you had long hair too as a kid!" Gohan did wear his hair long for a long part of his childhood. His mother only cut it when he went to Namek, and then his father cut it in the Room of Spirit and Time. Tora gave a little nod of confirmation.

"I recognize those clothes," Bulma noted.

"Mother lent him those while he was in the house. His personal outfit was different," Tora confirmed.

"He is tall, the sword matches him," Trunks remarked, purposefully not commenting on how cute little-Tora looked.

"It was taller than me at the time."

"Other-me didn't cut your hair," Bulma observed.

"She had other priorities," Tora lied.

"How come I never learnt the piano?" Trunks glanced over at his mother, distracting from the hair discussion, and Bulma shrugged.

"We did offer when you were five, making you listen to all sorts of instruments, but you showed little interest and I didn't insist." Bulma answered. A little stiff, Tora glanced over and Trunks caught it and promptly dropped the subject. Perhaps Tora had been taught more because she was a girl, and Trunks wasn't about to blow her cover, so to speak.

"Where were the Cyborgs?" Krillin had to ask.

"They had been quiet for a few months, so either they saw what was going on and stayed away, or didn't care. They often took some breaks, after all, some long, some short. Things looked bright on that end, actually."

Bulma agreed with a nod, and gave a quick look towards her actual son.

"It's true that there were.. periods of calm," she said. It had been a decades-long nightmare.

"Tapion wasn't as strong as Gohan-san, perhaps he was about as strong as I was then, but he had unique techniques and he did agree to help Gohan-san should he find them. But that didn't solve this issue…"

Tora closed the photo and the sound file, put her computer back together and into its capsule, and put her hands on the sword in front of her.

"We don't know if Mother really succeeded in recreating the box, and while Tapion did get some sleep, finally, the bottom half of the monster kept wandering around and calling for his other half. The reason why the boxes had been separated to begin with was evident; no matter how strong-willed he was or how powerful the box held them sealed, the two halves were meant to reunite, and as such, one day, Tapion's upper half broke free. Hirudegarn, the monster, was complete, but still intangible at will."

Tora chased away memories of how she and Gohan tried to fight the monster, in vain. It kept phasing in and out.

"Gohan-san fought it and I and Mother helped earthlings escape. Over a few days, Tapion's magic wavered after each attempt of fending it off, the monster coming back more often, angrier, stronger."

"It couldn't continue.." Bulma whispered, she knew how things like that usually turned, and Tora had to confirm.

"With Gohan-san we realized unless the Cyborgs showed up and helped us somehow, it was a lost cause. Most of West City's infrastructure was down. Most people were safe already, thankfully, but it was a matter of time until the worst happened. Tapion also realized it."

'This ends right here, right now.' his voice echoed in her mind. Tapion had dressed back in his combat outfit, and had shot her a look full of care. The same look Gohan gave her unconscious body before going for his death.

Tora's hands gripped on the sword, she took a deep breath in, then out, and looked forward, determined to continue the tale, as determined as she was to do what had needed to be done.

"Gohan-san distracted the monster with all he had, striking whenever he tried to attack Tapion to become the target. Tapion played the flute and I was in charge of protecting him so he wouldn't lose concentration, so the entire magic could happen. Gohan-san couldn't last forever, so I also distracted the monster whenever I could and put myself between Tapion and him. The entirety of the monster was sealed into Tapion's body, but the flute broke." She paused, just to have a proper look at everyone, then continued.

"He gave me his sword." Tora closed her eyes at the vivid memory, not willing to show more emotion to the others as she had already, and unwilling to face their judgment.

The weight of those words were enough for a shiver to run down everyone's spine.

She remembered not feeling Gohan's super Saiyan energy at some point and the monster's gave her and Tapion his full attention. Tapion, she had the mission to protect him. Only his magic could contain the behemoth. She didn't know how to fight, had learnt to blast out of sheer instinct and was far from precise when flying or doing anything with her ki, but she grit her teeth. 'I am Trunks Brief, this is my home, I will let you get away with it!' she had shouted to the monster and made sure his interest was on her and not on Tapion. At least she was fast and small enough to dodge most of his attacks so she used that sole advantage for as long as Tapion needed. When the monster vanished and Tapion fell, she ran to him.

'Trunks, please, you have to kill me, and Hildegarn with me. There's no time. Do it. Do it before he comes out once more, stronger than ever. Do it!' Tora saw in her mind's eye how Tapion had unsheathed his sword, handed it over, and knelt for his death, the broken round flute in his hand.

'Do it to protect your world. My life does not matter, Trunks!' he insisted when Tora hesitated, Tapion had taken the tip of the sword, and put it in his chest, pressing until he bled. She nodded, she understood, but she still trembled.

'It was an honor meeting you, you're a brave young girl, my selfish wish is for this sword to bring you victory.' She tightened her hands on the weapon, eyes blurry with tears. He whispered a last 'thank you' before she pushed the sword through and ended the nightmare.

Krillin visibly paled. He knew Tora was capable of killing, he feared some of their more heated interactions, and he now knew how real it had all been. How the younger time traveler would have actually done it if given an opportunity. How similar Tora was to Vegeta or perhaps even more dangerous. He glanced over to Trunks, who seemed more chill, but he didn't seem affected by the revelation; he, too, would have done it.

Gohan's heart broke for his friend. He had gone through so much, so bravely, no wonder he has such a no-nonsense attitude.

"He asked you to kill him," Bulma realized, tears rising up her eyes. "You were but a little boy.. my precious little boy." She was about to stand and go hug her alternate son when Trunks caught her eye and gestured no.

Her mother had reacted similarly when she came home that morning alongside a badly beaten up Gohan who had carried the sword and Tapion's body to Capsule Corp. Tora eventually opened her eyes again, biting down all of the sorrow and the hurt it had caused her. Nightmares on end, her doubts about being anywhere near a good person, the hopelessness of their world. She cut her hair short two days afterwards and wouldn't take no for an answer from Gohan when it came to training, to being useful, to destroy the Cyborgs.

"Gohan-san gave me back the sword on my thirteenth birthday, a few months after he had lost his arm," she glanced over to Bulma, then to Trunks, knowing they both remembered that event as having been similar but not identical to her own. "It was to serve as a reminder that sacrifices were necessary as long as they weren't in vain. A reminder that we had to keep going, to move forward, no matter what. As you know already, he died a few months later, saving me- saving us," she glanced over at Trunks to include him, "and allowing us to carry on."

She finished her cup of coffee silently as the information sank in her audience, perhaps a little somber. Tora had no regrets, she did what she could with the information and strength she had, and she wasn't going to desecrate Tapion's memory and mourn him any longer. Eventually she smiled faintly, and went back to the reason why she had told them the story to begin with.

"The box was about this size," she put her hands to indicate something no bigger than a shoe-box, "white, with golden leaf patterns. Should you find it or Hoi, I trust you will make better informed choices than we did."

With the story told, it was already almost noon. Tora put back the sword against the armchair and stood, stepping into the kitchen to start cooking a meal for everyone, leaving them else to deal with the fallout of the story. She needed to be alone, so when she closed the door behind her, the message wasn't lost on her allies.

Tora didn't notice she was the one who destroyed the music room by her mere ki outburst the night she came back, and her mother made sure she never found out.

'It's ok to miss him, you know,' her mother told her; the memorial they held for him was simple but Tora locked herself away, she couldn't bear it. She had cut her own hair short a couple of nights afterwards, when she decided she wouldn't be held back anymore, she'd fight her enemies and win, and she'd do so with Tapion's parting words in mind. Bulma had fixed her hair after the initial shock of seeing her precious daughter's hair massacred like that.

Tora had never experienced loss, let alone loss by her own hand. She didn't know how to deal with her anger, her sorrow, her guilt. Gohan had lost all his friends and allies, too… But he kept his distance.

'I killed him, mom, I killed him myself!' she had screamed at her mother.

The ki outburst and rejection of the little comfort Bulma tried to give her was enough for Gohan to finally show up and accept training her. An angry Saiyan, even if Tora was just a half-breed, was no joke, and the prospect of losing Bulma, the last remaining member of their friend group, was unbearable. Tora needed to learn to control her temper, or at least let it all out against someone who could take it.

Tora didn't hear the knock on the door, nor its opening. Gohan had a peek and saw the young adult leaning over the counter, knife in hand as she had begun cutting vegetables from the greenhouse, but had stopped midway. The hair hiding her face didn't stop Gohan from recognizing the quiet shudders and seeing the tears fall on the cutting board.

.

.

.

The looping music is the same Bulma and Vegeta were first listening to (Sora in Vision of Escaflowne, piano version)
youtu be / U5v6PVLlvc8
(It can be played on an ocarina, just without the left hand ;)

Tora calls it a flute because she doesn't know what an Ocarina is (and it makes sense for Earth to not have an alien instrument...))