Student of the Frozen Turtle! Gohan Confesses!
Suno watched Gohan and Goten fly off toward the island Gohan had found for them to use for training with a wide smile on her face and let out a soft sigh as she watched them go. She could just imagine Goku going off with the pair of them to help their daughter get ready for her first tournament. Even after seven years, it was so easy to let her mind wander into a world where Goku was still there, as if she could talk to her or go out into the backyard and find her tending the garden.
At least, Suno reminded herself as she turned away from the window and headed back to her bedroom, she'd get to see Goku again at the Budoukai in a few weeks. She couldn't help but count herself lucky for that. She didn't count on seeing Goku in person again for many, many years so this was nothing less than a gift. As she changed into her gi, Suno caught her reflection in the mirror and frowned at her wrinkles and the few, stray grey hairs hidden among the red. She'd never really noticed them before and, when she had noticed them, they hadn't really bothered her. Now that Goku was coming back, though, it was impossible not to think about them. Goku hadn't aged a day in seven years while sometimes Suno felt like she'd aged fourteen.
"She'll think I look so old…" Suno muttered to herself with a deepening frown. She shook her head and tried her best to push those thoughts away as she finished changing. She knew Goku wouldn't care how she looked. Goku would always be Goku, she would always love Suno, and it was going to be so amazing to see her again. She'd just tuck those insecurities far enough back in her mind that she wouldn't have to think about them for a while. A knock at the front door alerted Suno to her pupil's arrival and she rushed to the door eagerly before catching herself before she opened the door and taking a slow, composing breath. After all, Master Frost had never looked giddy to see her. The very notion of a giddy Master Frost made Suno giggle and she had to compose herself all over again. There was a second knock at the door before Suno finally opened it to see Videl standing on the other side of the door with an eager grin on her young face. Videl was wearing the same long tank top, purple undershirt, black shorts, yellow boots, and black fingerless gloves she was wearing when she trained with Gohan so Suno supposed that was as much of a gi as the young girl probably wore.
"I just wanna say," Videl began with a bow as Suno stepped out of the house, "How much of an honor it is to train with you, Mrs. Suno–"
"There's your first problem," Suno interrupted her. "I know we had fun when I was helping you and Goten learn to fly but from now on during training, you will call me Master Suno. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Master Suno!" Videl agreed emphatically as she bowed again. Suno nodded with her hands behind her back, trying her best to look stern. You had to set boundaries, she told herself, and establish the master-student relationship as quickly as possible. Technically, she supposed that Videl could call her 'Mistress Suno', but that just made her feel… uncomfortable.
"I'm going to help you get as strong as you can in the next two weeks but I can only make you as strong as the effort you give me," Suno watched as Videl nodded eagerly, already getting into a fighting stance. "You should know," she added, "That some incredibly powerful fighters will be in the tournament, including me. So I don't want you to get discouraged but it's very likely that you won't get far in this tournament." The words were barely out of Suno's mouth before she was instantly regretting them. What was she doing?! Why would she say what? Videl had come to her eager to learn, there was no need for her to try and crush her spirits by projecting her own insecurities onto the girl!
"That's okay, Master Suno," Videl assured her, snapping Suno out of her panic. "I know that the deck's stacked against me this time. I won't be discouraged, though!" There was a fire and a determination in the young girl's eyes that nearly stunned Suno. "I'm going to train my very hardest to be the strongest version of myself that I can be!" Suno nodded proudly at her pupil, a grin spreading across her own face.
"All right," Suno declared. "Let's get started! Come at me and show me what you've got!" Videl blinked and looked at Suno in surprise but already had the discipline not to drop out of her guard. "Attack me! Let me see what you're capable of!" Videl nodded and shot at Suno like a bullet, her feet never touching the ground as she flew toward her with one fist reached back. The only problem for Videl, of course, was that Suno was several times faster than the speed of a bullet. Suno effortlessly deflected the punch with the side of one hand with the other tucked behind her back and pushed it away. Videl tried her best to press the attack, however, using the momentum from being pushed away to try and catch her new teacher by surprise with a kick to the back of the head. Suno ducked under the kick with time to spare and Videl caught herself out of her spin to swing her elbow down as hard as she could with a strike down at Suno's collarbone as she stood from her crouch. It would have normally caught her precisely, except for the fact that Videl had abandoned the normal world the moment she'd asked Gohan to teach her how to fly. Suno leaned back slightly with her feet still firmly planted in the grass and Videl's elbow rushed harmlessly past her, the momentum bringing Videl down to a crouch. The young woman looked up just in time to see Suno bringing down two fingers toward her, tapping her between the eyes and sending her flying back as if she'd been cracked in the face with a baseball bat. Videl got to her feet relatively quickly despite the tiny red bump on her forehead and got into a fighting stance again before Suno waved a hand for her to stop.
"What's wrong, Master Suno?" Videl asked as she got out of her guard, standing with her hands at her sides. "How bad am I?"
"Not bad at all," Suno said. "For a regular person, you're actually very talented. Just training with Gohan to master flight has already bolstered your ki and boosted your strength. If I had to guess, you've already surpassed your father. Not that I mean that as an insult to your dad, of course."
"It's okay," Videl said with a bit of a grin. "I know my dad had pretty bad luck in the tournament until you guys stopped showing up." Suno gave her a bit of a look and Videl quickly straightened her posture again. "Master Suno," she added. Suno nodded and continued.
"But if you want to have any chance to last more than a second in the tournament," Suno continued, "You're going to need to do a lot better than regular. For starters," she said as she walked toward Videl, "Get back into your guard again." Videl got into her fighting stance and let out a slightly surprised noise as Suno put her hands on her, pushing on her arms, shoulders, and back to fix her posture. "That's better," she declared. "Your stance wasn't bad but it had several weaknesses." She got into her own fighting stance and stood beside Videl, who watched her sharply and followed Suno's every motion studiously with her strikes, trying her best to copy the older woman's smooth movements as she showed her the basics of the Odori style. They also spent most of that first day of training with Suno having Videl do several pushups and situps, as well as running laps around the house, both forwards and backwards. And on her hands. In an attempt to show Suno how well she'd already been progressing, Videl displayed her own ki ball.
"I tried to figure out how to do it myself," Videl explained as the fuzzy, glowing white ball hovered in the air. "I put together what Gohan told me and Goten about how ki works when he was showing us how to fly with videos of you, Goku, and the others using their attacks I'd scrounged up on the internet." Suno inspected the ki ball like a stern schoolmaster staring at a student's homework before popping it like a bubble with a fingertip.
"You can't brute force ki generation," Suno explained. "It comes with balance. Don't worry, though. We'll get there."
OoOoOoO
The second day of Videl's training was conducted inside a large Capsule meat locker with the temperature cranked to the lowest possible point to try and simulate the conditions that Suno had trained under with Master Frost. Videl was, under Suno's own instruction, in the warmest clothes she had. In contrast to her winter boots, thick sweatpants, sweater, gloves, and wool cap with thermal underwear underneath all of this, Suno was just wearing her gi.
"A-a-aren't y-y-y-y-ou c-c-c-cold, Master Suno?" Videl stammered out through chattering teeth. She was clearly fighting the urge to hug herself to keep warm and stay in her fighting stance. Suno couldn't help but give her a bit of a smirk with her hands on her hips.
"This is nothing," Suno replied playfully. "If we were training in Jingle Village in the winter, you wouldn't be able to feel your toes!"
"I-I-I already c-c-can't feel my toes!"
Despite Videl's protestations, they spent the first hour or so of this arctic education in meditation, both so that Videl could focus on her ki awareness and control and to acclimate her to the cold conditions. They sparred after that, although with a bit of a twist. Suno made Videl cover her eyes and ears with a cloth wrapped around both so that she could only rely on her ki sensing to fight with. The binding would come off after the first time she was hit and, for fairness' sake, Suno went as slowly as she possibly could.
She still had to take off the binding almost immediately.
The training like this continued for another week and, with every day, Videl began to make incremental progress. By the third day of training alone, it took Suno two attempts to to hit a blinded Videl. It was almost remarkable how quickly the young woman was picking up on ki control and the Odori style. It was clear that Suno's pupil was taking her training home with her to try and pack as much progress as she could into the limited time. She only hoped that the girl's actual homework wasn't suffering because of it.
"It's no big deal," Videl assuaged Suno when she questioned her as such. "I mean, my name is on the school, Master, I can kinda get away with a lot." Suno fixed Videl with a stern look that she had never gotten from any professor, martial arts teacher, or even her own parents. "I-I'm kidding, Master Suno!" she said hurriedly. "It was a joke! I'm keeping up with my studies!"
"That's what I thought you said," Suno warned her in an authoritative tone. "Now let's see that ki ball." Videl smiled proudly as she held out her hand and let out a calm, relaxed breath. Her palm glowed brightly and a ball of ki raised up from her hand, shimmering brightly and practically humming with energy. In contrast to her earlier attempts, which had both the appearance and effectiveness of glowing cotton balls, Videl's new ball was like a tiny sun in her hand. Suno gave a few cursory pokes and nodded approvingly when the ki ball held up against the pressure.
"So when do I learn how to do a Kamehameha?" Videl asked excitedly as the ki ball vanished out of her hand.
"We can do it today if you're in such a hurry," Suno told her jokingly. "Just let me go see if Bulma has a nuke that I can fire at you." Videl's skin paled slightly and she swallowed nervously.
"Th-that's okay, Master Suno," she stammered out. "We can take the slow route." Suno gave a bit of a chuckle before handing Videl her bind again to wrap around her eyes and ears to begin their sparring.
OoOoOoO
There was a tradeoff to Videl's progress, however. When Gohan had been teaching her to fly, they'd started spending more and more time hanging out together. It started with her sitting down with him at lunch which meant that soon enough all of Videl's friends sat with them, too. They also often paired up during gym class which meant that Videl's friends started hanging around them then, too. It seemed inevitable that she'd drag Gohan kicking and screaming into being one of the popular kids. There were also the quiet moments between just the two of them; usually they would pair off in study hall or for labs in science class. After a week, they started having their lunch on the roof of the school so they wouldn't be bothered by everyone else. Videl could feel that they were starting to grow closer and it would actually take a few seconds for Gohan to realize that their hands were touching before pulling away, blushing and stammering like an idiot.
However, as the tournament grew closer and closer, it felt like Gohan was drifting away from her. She couldn't find him at lunch and when she asked where he'd gone, he'd say something about how Great Saiyaman was needed in some city or other. When Videl checked the news, though, there weren't any stories about the Great Saiyaman doing anything. He started working alone in labs and study halls as well and seemed to talk to everyone in their group of friends but her. She tried to tell herself that it wasn't anything to get worried about. After all, Gohan probably just had a lot on his mind, given that his mom was coming back to life in a few days, he still had to train his little sister, and he had to take care of his own training and still, somehow, find some time to do superhero stuff every now and then. She couldn't help but get worried, though, especially when Gohan stopped answering her texts. Then she tried calling him and it just went to voicemail.
"Hey, Gohan," she said the first time, "It's Videl. Obviously. I know you've got a lot going on right now but I… I guess I'm just a little worried, I guess? I don't want you to overwork yourself or shut yourself in. You know you can talk to me. So, call me back, I guess. Or talk to me at school. Bye." He didn't do either of those things.
"Hey, Gohan," the third voicemail began. "I… I don't know if I did something to upset you or I said the wrong thing, o-or if you think I'm a distraction or something, or if you found another girl you like but… just tell me, okay? What's going on with you?"
"Gohan…" the fifth voicemail said in a pained voice. "Talk to me. Please…" Videl tried asking Suno what was going on with Gohan but, despite being the guy's mother, she didn't really have a definitive answer for her, either.
"Honestly, I'm lucky if I can get ten words out of him a day," Suno said with a sigh. "It's like he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders and he's afraid that if he tells anyone else, it'll crush them. I've never seen him like this, not even when he and Goku were training to fight Cell."
"I've got a bit of a plan," Videl decided firmly upon receiving that information. "I don't know if you'll like it, though. It kinda involves me doing something that isn't great for my academic career."
"If it gets Gohan to talk about whatever's eating him," Suno replied, "You can get the school closed for a week." That made Videl laugh despite her worries.
"Nothing that drastic," she assured her teacher.
OoOoOoO
"Mother, I'm home!" Gohan called as he pushed open the front door. He'd taken the "long" way home and flew rather than using Instant Transmission. Mostly because he was in a paradoxical conundrum where he didn't want to be at home where he knew that his worrying was upsetting his mother but he also didn't want to be by himself because it left him alone with his thoughts, which always turned to armageddon. "I don't know if it's a good idea to keep training Videl," he lied as he turned and closed the door behind him. "I saw her at school today and she looked pretty tired. I think you might be overworking her."
"That's funny," Suno replied in that tone she only ever used when Gohan was in trouble. The blood froze in his veins as he was instantly taken back to when he stole cookies out of the jar on top of the fridge before dinner or pretending to be studying when he was really reading manga. "Because I saw Videl today, too, and I thought she looked fine."
"Not fine," Videl admitted, her voice giving Gohan a shock. "Ticked off." Gohan slowly turned at a glacial pace to see his mother and his… friend, both sitting on the living room couch and glaring at him. "I played hooky and waited here all day after your mom told me you'd left for school," Videl explained. "I can get away with it," she reminded him. "Name, school, all that jazz." Gohan started reaching a hand up to put his fingers to his forehead before Suno shot across the room and grabbed his wrist.
"Ohhh, no you don't," she told him sharply, still using that 'I brought you into this world and I'll take you out' tone. "You're gonna stay right here, mister. You don't wanna tell me about it? That's fine," she continued as she dragged Gohan across the room by the wrist. "But whatever's going on with you, you owe this young lady an explanation." She shoved Gohan onto the couch beside him and jabbed an admonishing finger in his face, the unspoken decree very clear. He wasn't moving from that couch until he started talking to Videl.
"What's going on, Gohan?" Videl asked in a hurt voice. "Are you… I mean, I know it sounds crazy to ask this, given who you are, but are you in trouble? Is something wrong? Did I do something wrong?" Her voice and her lip quivered when she asked her next question. "Why are you avoiding me?" Gohan looked down at his hands, feeling wretchedly miserable now that he was confronted with just how much his actions had hurt Videl. "Don't just make that face, talk to me!" Videl demanded, her voice thick with heartache.
"I didn't wanna worry you," Gohan muttered, barely moving his lips. Videl glared at him and punched him in the arm as hard as she could. He actually flinched at that.
"I've been worried sick for like a week!" Videl exclaimed hotly. "Why do you think I spent all day in your house?! D… do you not like me? Do you not want to be friends anymore? If that's what it is then for fuck's sake, just tell me!"
"I…" Gohan swallowed as he balled his fists into hands on his lap. "I'm sorry," he finally said. "I didn't mean for it to be like this." He let out a shaky breath and looked up at the ceiling, blinking a few times before looking at Videl again. "Okay," he finally relented. "Okay. But if I'm gonna tell you, you're gonna need some context." He took another breath, chewing on his bottom lip. "I… my mom is an alien."
"Which one?" Videl asked with the barest hint of a smile. She still wasn't really sure where this was going. Gohan rolled his eyes.
"Goku," he clarified. "She's a Saiyan, like–"
"Like those guys who attacked the Earth and one of 'em turned into a giant monkey?" Videl finished.
"Yeah," Gohan replied with a nod.
"So the Vegeta that my dad advertised shirts for–"
"Same guy, yeah."
"Jeez…"
"Anyway," Gohan continued, "It's a really long story. Most of the Earth doesn't know about most of it, except for King Giran, and he only knows because it's Bulma's job to tell him."
OoOoOoO
"So your uncle kidnapped you and tried to kill your mom?" Videl asked in disbelief.
"Yeah," Gohan said with an almost-ambivalent shrug. "I'm pretty sure I broke a couple of his ribs. It was a really weird day."
OoOoOoO
"Wait, hang on," Videl interrupted again. "So somewhere out there, there's a whole planet of Piccolos."
"Yeah," Gohan acknowledged.
"Only they're called Namekians, Piccolo isn't actually a demon but some kinda weird plant-man who got puked up out of an egg, and also God is an alien."
"Something like that," Gohan said with a chuckle.
"I did not expect this conversation when I just thought you were cheating on me."
"Wait, cheating?!"
OoOoOoO
"I thought you said the planet was supposed to blow up in five minutes."
"I did."
"This all sounds like it took a lot more than five minutes."
"I know, I know."
OoOoOoO
"So," Gohan finally said, "Now you know where everything is."
"Yeah," Videl nodded as she struggled to process all of this information. "Your mom's coming back to life to compete in the Tenkaichi Budoukai because she was a really good person and gets to come back to Earth for twenty four hours."
"Uh huh."
"But at the same time, you've been getting these visions from God or whoever telling you that an evil wizard it trying to unleash an evil, unstoppable monster that will kill everything and everyone in the whole universe and that's also probably gonna be on the tournament."
"Yep, that's pretty much it." Gohan said with a lopsided grin, trying his best to look casual about the whole ordeal.
"Jeez," Videl muttered for what felt like the thirtieth time that afternoon. No wonder Gohan had been so worked up over the last few days. "You still could've told me," she muttered after punching him again.
"I know, I know," Gohan sighed. "I promise I won't hide anything anymore and I'll start talking to you again." Then, as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head he added, "Just...gimme a couple days. I kinda panicked because you kept calling me and threw my cell phone into space." Videl rolled her eyes.
"Dork," she muttered affectionately. Gohan blushed and she smiled at him. "There's just one thing I don't know," she added.
"Really?" Gohan asked curiously. "Because I kinda covered my entire life story."
"Not all of it," she told him. "I know where everything is now," she agreed, "But I don't know where we are." Gohan's face flushed and she rolled her eyes again. "Well if you're not gonna give me an answer…" she grabbed the sides of Gohan's face and pulled him to her, kissing him suddenly. "Is that a good guess?" she asked. Gohan nodded dumbly with a face as red as a stoplight and she kissed him again.
Suno peaked into the living room from a crack in her bedroom door, grinning broadly. 'My grandchildren are gonna be beautiful,' she thought happily.