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By Juuhachigo and MiraiBulma
"With the Light in Our Eyes It's Hard to See"
I have slept beside the winter and the green is growing slow
I have watched you find the places hidden by the snow
I have tripped into a valley where it's blue till you can't see
I want you to come walk this world with me
*****
The sky was a dull gunmetal gray, a featureless cloud cover obscuring everything overhead except the faintest patch of light from the late afternoon sun. A cold bitter wind kicked up the dust from the roadside at her feet, but she barely felt it even though her clothes were thin and tattered. She didn't look up at the cars that roared by, even those that passed close to her; any shouts or whistles fell on ears that might as well have been deaf for all the attention she paid to it.
Her head was a buzz of confusion. She didn't know how long she'd been walking, or even when she'd begun to do so. She didn't know where she'd come from, and she certainly didn't know where she was going.
She only knew she didn't know much of anything at all. Not even her own name.
The road took a sharp turn to the south, but she continued walking east, in the same more or less straight line she'd followed for--she didn't remember. Her eyes were perpetually fixed on the ground several paces ahead. Occasionally she swiped a stray lock of blonde hair from her face.
She felt the first few drops on her skin, and finally stopped when it began to rain in earnest. She lifted her head and looked around.
She appeared to be standing near the outskirts of a large city. There was some new construction, and a great deal of rubble had obviously been cleared away, but some old ruins still stood, cracked and blasted open, husks of buildings standing like mammoth gravestones on the landscape. The newer, undamaged structures seemed pathetically small by comparison.
A dome sat closer by, to the northeast; on closer inspection, she could make out the writing across the sloping surface of the hemisphere: CAPSU...the rest curved out of sight along the outer wall.
Capsule Corporation? Those words sprang into her mind for no reason, but it was enough to spur her on towards the dome to see if her guess was correct.
It was the first thing she'd found that looked even remotely familiar.
*****
The office was lit only by the display on the computer screen. Bulma's nimble fingers flew over the keys swiftly, entering data as fast as her mind could produce it. As engrossed as she was in her latest pet project, she kept one ear cocked for the return of her son.
She paused long enough to lean back and stretch. She couldn't help smiling at herself for worrying about Trunks. It wasn't as if the boy (well, he was hardly a boy anymore, but considering her son an adult reminded her of how much time she was carrying around) couldn't look after himself...he did a very good job, in fact, of looking after both of them. Not to mention the rest of the world...what was left of it.
Any way one looked at it, the present situation was nothing short of grim. What the artificial humans hadn't destroyed in their seventeen-year rampage, Cell had very nearly finished before Trunks had killed him. Of a planetary population of several billion, there were less than a hundred thousand humans left alive.
Hope City, built up amongst the ruins left by the cyborgs, was one of the more thriving communities. Tiny settlements around the world like it were linked by old-fashioned radio communication, but Hope boasted the benefit of having a genius with astonishing technological resources living on its outskirts. Herself.
Bulma scrolled through the specifications she'd finished typing in from her perfect memory and leaned back, sighing. This was one project she'd shared with no one, not even Trunks; in the lower levels of Capsule Corporation was an area he had thankfully not even considered going into, which was good, because he couldn't have without blasting his way in. Bulma had restricted the entry access code to herself alone.
She didn't know if it would work, and it would be pointless to get anyone's hopes up but hers before she actually was ready to make the attempt to...
A sound at the front of the building made her look around. Bulma quickly saved her work, shut down the system and went to the door of the lab. "Oi, Trunks-kun, home already?" she called down the hallway.
Slow, hesitant steps--not at all like Trunks' steady, confident stride--approached. A slender female figure appeared--drenched to the skin, her hair in her face. Her clothes were caked with dirt, hanging in tatters from her slender frame. One barely-visible eye looked at Bulma with no readable emotion.
"What in the world...?!" Bulma started toward her, but something--some vague but chilling apprehension--made her pause. The newcomer had obviously been through some kind of ordeal, and yet...and yet..."Are you hurt? What happened to you?"
The girl's mouth opened, and she drew a soft breath. "This...is Capsule Corporation...?" Her voice was soft, the barest whisper.
"Yes, it is," Bulma said briskly. The girl was soaking wet, mud-streaked, probably starving, and not making any overt gestures of hostility. She looked to be no threat whatsoever. Even so, Bulma's nameless unease refused any attempt at dismissal. She braved another step forward. "My name's Bulma. Can I help you with something, Miss...?"
"I...I'm not...sure." The girl shook her head. Her straight blonde hair, heavy with rainwater, barely moved. "I...I know this place...I know the name, but...I don't remember why. I don't remember...anything." She swiped the hair from her face and looked at Bulma with pleading eyes. "Please...do you know who I am?"
It was the face. The expression was alien on that face, but Bulma recognized it immediately. An ice-cold shock of blind terror flooded her nerves. Her breath hitched in her throat, but she managed to force out one word.
"Jinzouningen..." she gasped, backing away. The artificial human stood in the doorway leading out, the only exit from the lab; there was nowhere else to go, nowhere to run. "Jinzouningen!!"
Juuhachi-gou followed her into the lab. She held out a hand that fought visibly not to tremble. "Wait! Don't be afraid," she begged. "I don't want any trouble. I just want to know who I am."
Bulma stumbled backwards against a lab table and fell. She clawed wildly, uselessly, in a vain attempt to keep her balance. Test-tubes and computer disks and files scattered across the floor, glass crashing into shards, papers rustling, the small metal table skittering aside with a tinny clatter. Bulma landed heavily on her back, the breath knocked out of her. Unable to move, unable to think, she gasped for breath that wouldn't come as the slim figure stepped closer, bent over her.
You're dead! Bulma's fear-crazed mind screamed, but she couldn't form the words. Trunks killed you and Juunana-gou both. Three years ago!! You can't be here, I'm going insane, this isn't happening, Trunks where are you HELP ME!!!
Her heart thundered in her ears. She waited, helpless, waiting to die.
Juuhachi-gou watched her for a moment, then straightened up, took a small step back. The smooth, painfully beautiful features bore a stamp of complete incomprehension. She shook her head as if trying to deny Bulma's panic. "Why are you so afraid of me? Do you know me? What...what could I have done to you? I swear, I don't remember..."
When she wasn't immediately struck dead, Bulma's brain kicked into high gear and overrode the hammering of her heart. Obviously the cyborg was disoriented. At least Juuhachi-gou's confusion would give Bulma a chance to think her way out of the situation. She had to stay calm and hope that Trunks would get back soon. Minutes passed as Bulma caught her breath, and still her uninvited visitor didn't make any attempt to harm or even threaten her. Juuhachi-gou just looked at Bulma, with that same blank look in her luminous eyes.
When she thought her legs would support her weight again, Bulma pushed herself up to her knees, still gasping a bit. She never took her eyes off of Juuhachi-gou. She kept waiting for the mask to fall away, for the cyborg to drop the innocent act and get on with killing her. For long minutes she stayed there on the floor, kneeling, trying not to shake too hard.
Finally the cyborg shook her head. "I...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--whatever it was I've done, I'm sorry." Incredibly, her breath hitched; it sounded remarkably like a sob. "I won't bother you anymore. I'll just go." She turned hastily away and headed for the door, her bare feet soundless on the tile floor.
"Matte yo!" Bulma called, struggling to her feet. She still wasn't sure this wasn't some kind of sick game Juuhachi-gou was playing, but she was willing to try to find out. "Wait...please!"
Juuhachi-gou stopped dead still. Slowly she looked back at Bulma. The unrelenting white glare of the fluorescent ceiling lights glinted off the unmistakable glimmer of tears in the Jinzouningen's eyes.
Tears. From this creature? Impossible...but Juuhachi-gou was looking back at her with such despairing loss...if it was an act, it was a damned good one.
Bulma cleared her throat and swallowed hard. "You...you really don't remember, do you? Don't you know your name? Who you are? What you've done?"
Juuhachi-gou shook her head. "No." She looked shattered, defenseless, not even of an age to match her designation. She looked like a lost child. "I remember...walking. Alongside the road. Not too many cars...It was cold, and windy...and then it started raining, and I came here." She fell silent and wrapped her arms around herself as if to stave off a sudden chill--a chill from the void inside her.
"That's it?" The knot of suspicion in Bulma's stomach began, slowly, to loosen. "That's all you remember?"
Juuhachi-gou nodded once. She reached up one small white hand and swiped back the still-damp blonde hair which kept trying to curtain her face. "Please help me," she whispered, and swallowed hard. "Whatever it is I've done to make you so frightened of me, I swear I'll make it up to you somehow." She blinked, and one tear escaped, sliding softly down her mud-spattered cheek. "Please, I'll do anything you want...if only you'll help me remember who I really am."
It was some time before Bulma could do anything besides stare at her.
*****
Trunks shifted his load to a more comfortable position on his shoulder and picked up speed. He probably should've taken the car, but he never knew when Bulma might need it, and it was just as easy for him to fly the relatively short distance to Hope's market. He took it upon himself to do the grocery shopping primarily because he was the one who consumed most of the food in the house.
When he landed in front of the dome, the first thing he noticed was that the front door was standing wide open. A scowl settled on his normally gentle features. He set the boxes and bags down at the doorstep and walked inside.
"Kaa-san?" he called.
The immediate answer he received set his mind at rest. "Trunks? Hold on, I'll be there in a sec!" He heard his mother talking in soft tones to someone who gave a small grunt as a reply. Company? Well, it wasn't unheard of for them to have visitors, although people very rarely came to Capsule Corp. unannounced. It made Trunks glad that his mother had someone to talk to for once instead of hunching over her computer virtually every waking moment as she'd done for the past six months.
Bulma appeared, wearing a kitchen apron over her denim coveralls. "Good, you're home!" she said brightly, but Trunks suspected some of the cheer was forced. Why? "Be a good boy and bring those groceries inside before they get soaked."
"It's not raining now, Kaa-san." Trunks moved the purchases inside and closed the door. "Who's here? Someone I know?"
Bulma grimaced a little, her eyes widening. "Well...sort of..."
"Hn?"
She bit her lip nervously, and laid a hand on her son's forearm. "Now, Trunks, don't go ballistic on me, okay? Hear me out before you say or do anything. Promise me?"
"Okay...Kaa-san, what is it? Is something wrong?"
"Well...yes and no. I mean, not really, but it could be--I mean, it probably won't be, but it's still too early to tell..." She stole a nervous glance back over her shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. "Trunks, listen to me."
"I'm listening, Kaa-san," he answered as patiently as he could. "You're not making a lot of sense."
"Oh...okay." Bulma took a deep breath. "There is someone here...she's come a long way from...wherever she came from. She's suffering amnesia; she doesn't remember anything."
"She?" Trunks echoed. "A woman?"
"Yes. She's been here for over an hour; she took a quick bath and I gave her some of my old things to wear...they're practically falling off of her, the poor thing. Now listen!" She grabbed Trunks' arm as he started towards the kitchen. "You have to promise to stay calm--and keep an open mind, please? Remember, she has no memories of anything that's happened, although I don't know what her reaction will be to seeing you."
"Seeing...me?" Now Trunks was completely lost. "Is she someone we know?"
"Ohhh yeah." Bulma nodded grimly. "Just come with me. And do nothing--nothing--unless you have to. Understand?" Bulma lifted two of the bags in her arms and started off down the hall. "And bring the rest of that stuff, okay?"
Trunks picked up the bulk of his purchases and headed after his mother.
The first thing he saw in the kitchen was a small female sitting at the table with her back to them. She was hunched over; the only things he could see at first glance was that she had pale straight blonde hair and that Bulma's old olive-green Capsule Corporation T-shirt was, indeed, nearly swallowing her narrow frame whole.
"Are you still not hungry?" Bulma ventured as she set the bags down on the counter near the refrigerator.
A shake of the head. "I'm fine, but thank you for the tea. And the clothes."
That voice. It was a voice Trunks still heard sometimes in his dreams, the dreams where Gohan died again and again...it made Trunks drop everything he was carrying. The paper sacks ripped open when they hit the floor, spilling their contents at his feet.
Juuhachi-gou turned sharply around and looked at him with her wide pale eyes, those horrible, hated eyes.
"Trunks!" Bulma's voice whipcracked. "You promised!"
It took every ounce of self-control Trunks had not to go Super-Saiyajin and blast the cyborg to hell right then and there. Again.
Juuhachi-gou blinked, watching him. A frown creased her high white forehead. "Do I...do I know you...?"
"Jinzouningen..." Trunks hissed through his teeth. He could feel the rage building inside him. For a moment he was a boy of thirteen again, kneeling beside Gohan's ruptured body, wanting nothing more than to completely obliterate the things that had killed him. And for one of them, the more powerful and dangerous of the two, to be here, in his house, with his mother...!
"That's what she called me," Juuhachi-gou said, indicating Bulma with a toss of her head. "What does it mean? Is that my name? What kind of a name is that?"
"Juuhachi-gou," Bulma said quietly.
She looked around. "Number Eighteen?"
"Artificial Human Number Eighteen. That's who you are."
Juuhachi-gou shook her head. "I don't understand..."
"Shi-neeeeee!!!" A burst of light erupted from Trunks' skin. His hair blazed fiercely gold, spiking up from his head, wafting on waves of pure energy that radiated out from him. Cans clattered away from him across the floor as his hands began to glow. Sacks ruptured open, spilling flour and sugar in white clouds. "I'm going to make you die!"
Juuhachi-gou got to her feet, the chair clattering aside behind her. Before she could make another move--to fight, to run, to do whatever she intended, if anything--Bulma was standing in front of her, arms outstretched to either side, defiantly facing her son. "Trunks!" she shouted. "Put a lid on it now! Juuhachi-gou's done nothing to me. Don't you get it? She's practically helpless. She doesn't remember a thing. Where's the honor in killing someone who hasn't done anything to you?"
"What do you mean, 'hasn't done anything'?! And just how the hell long do you expect it to remain helpless?!" Trunks snarled. "Sooner or later it'll remember what it is, and then we'll all be dead if we don't kill it first!"
"That's your father talking! Remember what you told me? That other world's Juuhachi-gou redeemed herself. Why can't ours?"
"Um...excuse me..." Juuhachi-gou looked around Bulma's shoulder. "Ah...hi," she said softly, waving a hand at the scowling, glowing youth. "Listen, I don't completely understand any of this, but...if it's that much trouble for me to be here, I'll be happy to go."
"You're not leaving here alive!" Trunks roared. "Kaa-san, get out of the way!"
"Would you at least mind telling me why you want to kill me?" Juuhachi-gou said to Trunks, showing more confusion than fear. She displayed no inclination whatsoever to take offensive action.
Bulma racked her brain for some way to defuse the volatile situation. The wisest course of action would have been to let Trunks blow the jinzouningen clear to hell, but something in her better nature wouldn't let her just stand by and let such a thing happen. "Juuhachi-gou, sit down. It's a long and ugly story, but I'll be happy to tell you everything I know. Trunks, turn it off. You're wrecking the wallpaper."
"Kaa-san--!!!" Trunks screamed in rage and frustration.
"I mean it, young man! Power down, or leave. Now."
With a final cry of outrage, Trunks' battle-aura vanished. He returned to normal and stalked to the far end of the kitchen, where he could get a clear shot at his enemy. He turned his back to the wall, folded his arms, and glared death at the willowy blonde, who only looked more troubled and confused in return.
With a huff of breath Bulma turned to Juuhachi-gou. "Go on, sit down. This is going to take a while."
*****
Trunks stood against the far wall and glowered murderously at Juuhachi-gou throughout Bulma's drawn-out explanation of past events. He didn't understand how someone as intelligent as his mother could be deceived by Juuhachi-gou's ruse, but he wasn't going to let his guard down for a moment.
Juuhachi-gou professed no memory whatsoever of Dr. Gero, or of any of the other cyborgs he'd created. She vaguely remembered the Red Ribbon Army, but she claimed to have no real idea what it was or had been. She listened quietly as Bulma related the story of Gokou's death. Her expression grew more somber by the moment as she heard how she and her companion cyborg Juunana-gou had ravaged the world for nearly twenty years before Trunks had destroyed them. Bulma didn't go into painstaking details--she didn't mention any of the other warriors who'd fallen by name, particularly not Gohan--but it was enough to give Juuhachi-gou a clear idea of the atrocities she and Juunana-gou had committed.
When Bulma finished, there was silence for a time. Then, quietly, Juuhachi-gou spoke. "Incredible. It's...I can't...none of it makes any sense, and yet...I know you're telling the truth."
"And you're sorry for what you've done?" Bulma prodded, with a quick glance at her son. Trunks didn't take his eyes off the cyborg.
Juuhachi-gou thought hard about it. Then she sighed and shrugged. "I don't think 'sorry' covers it. It's just so...much. Even if an apology would be appropriate...what's the point? I can't undo the damage."
"Damned right you can't," Trunks snarled, ignoring his mother's warning glare.
Bulma waved him quiet, then tried again. "Do you still want to kill humans?"
The response was immediate. "No! Why would I want to kill anybody?"
"And you're not going to go on another rampage and blast everything in sight to rubble, are you?"
Juuhachi-gou shook her head. "No. No, absolutely not. I don't even understand why I was doing it in the first place. If what you say is true, and I am some kind of...of artificial human, then maybe I was programmed for it. But now? No. I see no need for senseless destruction. God..." She ran her hands through her still-damp (but now clean) hair. "This is insane. It's like waking up one morning to find out you were Hitler."
"Hitler didn't destroy the world." Trunks folded his arms. "He only killed six million people. You and Juunana-gou slaughtered billions."
"I know, I know, but..." Juuhachi-gou gave up, sighed and stood up. "Listen, I may not have my whole head together, but I can tell I'm not doing any good hanging around here. Thank you for your help, Bulma...I think I need to go now. Don't worry; I have no intention of going on any more rampages'." She smiled crookedly. "I'm not sure exactly what it is I will do...but no, nothing like that. No one has anything to fear from me. Not anymore."
"We can't just let you leave," Trunks said, pushing himself away from the wall. "Why the hell should we believe you? Why should we believe all of this isn't just some new game of yours?" He approached until he was less than an arm's reach away from her, uncomfortably close to this thing he'd hated all his life. He glared into those strange, icy, slanted eyes, refusing to see any trace of humanity in them. "Oh, and while I'm asking, one more thing: why the hell aren't you dead, considering the fact that I killed you?"
Juuhachi-gou met his gaze without flinching. "You can believe me or not, it makes no difference to me. As far as why I'm not dead--I have no idea." Her jaw took a stubborn set. "I'm sure you remember the circumstances of my death far better than I do."
"I'll be sure to finish the job this time," he promised darkly.
She folded her arms and lifted her chin defiantly. "Listen, handsome; I'm not going to fight you. I don't want to cause any trouble. Please, just let me leave quietly and I promise you won't ever see me or hear from me again. Deal?"
"No way."
"Yamero!" Bulma snapped. "Stop it, both of you! This isn't getting us anywhere. Juuhachi-gou, if you really don't have any clear idea of where you're going from here, why don't you stay for a while at least? You could...well, you could make up for some of what you did by helping us rebuild."
The cyborg folded her arms and considered for a moment. "I don't know...I mean, I don't have anywhere else to go, and I guess I do owe you--everyone--a lot more than I could ever make up for, but..." She spared a look at the seething Trunks. "Can you keep him from killing me?"
"No," Trunks replied with a terrible grin.
"Yes," Bulma said at the same moment. "Trunks, this is my house, my life, and my decision," she added as her son started to protest. "We need all the help we can get, and if I didn't believe in giving lost causes a second chance you wouldn't be here right now. After all, your father originally came to this planet to destroy it, remember?"
"This thing killed my father," Trunks said, stepping back and jabbing a finger at Juuhachi-gou. "I won't stay under the same roof with it."
"Oh yes you will." Bulma's retort brooked no argument. "I'm pulling mommy rank on you. And stop calling her a 'thing' and 'it'. Artificial or not, Juuhachi-gou's human. You don't have to like her, just don't start with her unless she starts with you. I mean it."
Trunks was a proud fighter, but respect for the woman who bore him carried a lot of weight with him. He grudgingly nodded his obedience, then growled at Juuhachi-gou, "I'll be watching you every moment, jinzouningen."
Juuhachi-gou cocked her head and sighed. "Great. Fine. Sure. Whatever. Nice meeting you too."
*****
Bulma's Journal, 210 days after Cell:
It hasn't been easy. I don't think Trunks has forgiven me even though it's been over a month since Juuhachi-gou came to stay with us. She still claims to remember nothing of significance. I've begun assigning her tasks in the lab to keep her busy; she's certainly a capable worker, but she's obviously quickly bored. I sent her out foraging with Trunks this afternoon after eliciting a promise from my son that he won't do anything rash. He promised to keep a close eye on her. I hope I haven't made a mistake, but I really need some time to myself. There's so little time left...
*****
Trunks wore the same scowl that had been stamped on his face since that afternoon in the kitchen. He kept stealing glances at his passenger in the red skycar; if Juuhachi-gou was aware of his scrutiny, she gave no sign of it. She was obviously enjoying the ride, the wind whipping through her sunlight-colored hair.
The car touched down outside one of the many wrecked and shattered ruins on the other side of what Bulma had taken to calling the Badlands. "Get anything useful you can find and bring it back to the car," Trunks said tersely as he got out. "We're looking for non-perishable foodstuffs, medicines, and basic electronic equipment that can be cannibalized for parts, in that order."
Juuhachi-gou jumped nimbly to the ground, looking at the ruined buildings with frank curiosity. "What hit this place?"
"You did." Trunks scowled at her. "You and Juunana-gou."
"...oh." She looked down at her feet.
"You still don't remember?"
"No." She turned away from him, the wind teasing through her cornsilk hair. "No, not a thing."
Trunks strapped his sword to his back, never letting his eyes stray from his unwelcome companion. "Well, the two of you did this to most of the cities on this planet."
"So you keep telling me." She forced herself to look around again, scanning the wreckage. "It looks like we did a pretty thorough job. Any survivors?"
"Not enough."
"No, I don't suppose there would have been, in this mess." She kicked at the remains of a portable radio transmitter; the box fell over with a rusty creak.
"Don't you even care? Can't you at least pretend to be sorry?"
Her pale eyes fixed on him, her straight hair swinging around her face as her head came around. She fixed him with a glare blazing with desperate fury. "What are you, so stupid you can't see straight?! Of course I'm sorry! I don't have to pretend. Baka mitai! What the hell do you think? How would you feel if somebody told you that you were half responsible for destroying the world, and you couldn't remember one damned thing about it, even though the proof was all around you and it had to be true?!"
Trunks folded his arms and glowered at her. "Don't expect any sympathy from me."
"I won't. You may be stupid, but I'm not. Let's just do what we came here to do and get back, okay? " She turned and walked off towards what had once been a hospital, the once-white walls now grey, dust-streaked and pitted.
Trunks growled deep in his throat. He lifted a few inches off the ground and flew easily after her. He wasn't about to let her--it--out of his sight.
She turned as he came up behind her. He stopped, hovering about a meter from her. Curiosity overcame her anger. "How do you do that?" she asked.
"What? Fly? Oh, gomen," he said in a voice heavy with sarcasm. "I suppose you've forgotten how."
She looked at him and blinked. Then she turned her back on him and jumped into the air.
She landed in the dust, sprawled flat on her face. Slowly she picked herself up off the ground, brushing at her clothes. She kept her head down, not looking at him, evidently embarrassed by the gaffe.
Trunks just watched her. The Juuhachi-gou he had grown up hating would have never made such a fool of herself. Never. Embarrassed? She would have been furious. She would have attacked him simply out of blind rage. He watched her closely for any sign of aggression.
Finally she met his eyes sullenly. "What the hell are you looking at?" She spun on her heel and kept going. He looked after her for a moment, struggling to grasp the incomprehensible. Her momentary anger, that had been familiar enough...but it had passed, and this soft-spoken, hesitant young woman was a stranger to him. Even her body language was different, more expressive than the machine of destruction he'd grown up hating with all his Saiyajin soul.
Then he shook his head sternly. This woman--this thing is my enemy. I tolerate her continued existence out of respect for my mother, but I can never forgive what she's done, no matter what. Never.
Having an extra pair of hands to help shift the larger pieces of rubble was convenient, and Juuhachi-gou proved to have a quick eye for scrounging, catching things Trunks himself might have missed. Trunks had to keep reminding himself that this city wouldn't have been rubble if it hadn't been for Juuhachi-gou and Juunana-gou in order to hold onto his healthy dislike and mistrust of her. She took his harshly-worded instructions without complaint or rebuttal.
"Be careful with those antibiotics," he ordered her as she hauled a marked container from the wreckage. "The glass will break if you drop it."
"Hai, hai," she answered, carrying the container under one arm back to the skycar. Trunks picked up the last of the crates he'd found in the basement they'd uncovered and flew after her. He was so intent on glaring at Juuhachi-gou, watching her every move, that he didn't see the fragment of dust-covered wall until his shoulder knocked into it. Jarred, he lost his grip on the crate, and a couple of bottles of spring water fell out of the half-opened crate to the rocky ground, smashing open on impact.
Juuhachi-gou looked back over her shoulder at him. "Be careful with those bottles," she called to him mildly. "The glass will break if you drop it."
"Onoreeeee...." Trunks almost threw the crate in the back of the skycar, not caring how many more bottles he broke. He got behind the wheel and started the engine. Juuhachi-gou barely had time to get in before the car was speeding back towards what was left of Capsule Corporation.
*****
Bulma's Journal, 221 days after Cell:
Trunks went back yesterday to try to find any trace of the remains of the other cyborg. He easily determined where Juuhachi-gou must've dug herself out, but other than a red bandanna, no trace of Juunana-gou. Nor was there any sign of Juunana-gou having emerged from the rubble the way Juuhachi-gou did. Trunks is convinced that if one jinzouningen survived, so must the other have done. We haven't heard of any sightings, though, so until we have proof, there's not much we can do.
I'll have to keep a close watch on things to make sure neither Trunks nor Juuhachi-gou stumble across what I'm doing. I don't want to cause more trouble; Kami-sama knows it's bad enough already living under the same roof with those two...
*****
The biting grate of a whetstone drawn across sharp steel was the only sound that disturbed the morning stillness. Trunks worked relentlessly at honing a blade that was already sharp enough to part flesh at a touch and tried hard to ignore the pair of pale eyes focused on him.
Juuhachi-gou sat on the wall nearby, watching him intently as though the sharpening of a sword was the most fascinating thing she'd ever seen. The sun had broken through the cloud cover this morning and shone a pale, watery light on the broken landscape.
Finally Trunks could bear the scrutiny in silence no longer. "What the hell do you want?" he asked without looking up, voice a roughened snarl of warning.
"Nothing," she answered, undisturbed.
"Then leave me alone."
"I'm not doing anything to you."
His head whipped around and he glared at her. "You're staring at me."
"A cat may look at a king. Besides, you're pretty to look at."
"Shut up."
"You don't look much like your mother."
"I look like my father. The man you killed."
"I don't remember it, but that doesn't matter." Juuhachi-gou leapt with catlike grace from the wall and stood in front of him. "I wanted to apologize for being so nasty to you the other day."
Trunks snorted. "Don't bother. After all the evil you've done, it's less than a drop in the ocean."
"Back to that again." She folded her arms and looked down, kicking idly at a stone half-imbedded in the dusty soil. "I guess I can't blame you for hating me. If it makes any sense to you, if I could give my life to bring him and the others back, I would."
"I don't believe you."
"Bulma believes me."
"I don't."
"Why not? It's the truth."
"My mother didn't see what you and Juunana-gou were like. She didn't fight you. She didn't see you murder Gohan. She doesn't understand."
"You're the one who doesn't understand." She set her hands on her hips and fixed him with a cool, steady glare. "I know I can't change the way you think of me. I really don't care. You can hate me till the crack of doomsday and it won't matter to me. But there's no peace in this house, and it's tearing your mother apart. For her sake--hers, not mine--could you at least try to be civil to me in front of her from now on?"
She took another step forward and stopped when Trunks sprang to his feet and faced her, his hateful glare daring her to come any closer.
Trunks trembled with the visible effort to restrain himself. He wanted to smash his fist into her face so badly, but he'd promised his mother, he'd given his word--
Juuhachi-gou looked at him for a long, measuring moment, aware of his inner struggle. Finally, she sighed.
Then she drew back and hit him across the jaw.
At that moment, Bulma opened the door and looked out. "There you are, you two. Lunch is ready--TRUNKS!!!! Nande kuso--?!?!"
Trunks froze, his hair flaring gold. Juuhachi-gou lay sprawled prone on the ground at his feet, unmoving. His sword was in his hands, its edge a hair's breadth from the cyborg's exposed throat.
Bulma ran up behind Trunks, but she couldn't touch him through the Super Saiya-jin aura. As soon as she got within arm's reach of him, her skin began to tingle and burn from the backwash of energy emanating from her son. "What the hell is going on?" she demanded.
"Kaa-san, don't interfere." Trunks' voice was cold with hatred.
He tensed as Juuhachi-gou stirred. She slowly looked up at him. The left side of her lovely face was a single massive bruise, blood trickling from the side of her delicate child's-pout mouth. She looked up at Trunks with the eye that wasn't swollen shut with an unsteady half-grin. "Remind me...not to do that again," she husked. "You're a lot stronger than you look. Faster, too. That's one hell of a right cross you have."
"Naaaaaani?!" Bulma blinked. "Trunks, put that thing away. Juuhachi-gou, what happened?"
Juuhachi-gou sighed. "Stress is the body's natural reaction to suppressing the overwhelming desire to beat the hell out of someone you think desperately deserves it. Things have been pretty tense around here lately, so I thought maybe if Trunks got the chance to rough me up, he'd be able to blow off some steam. So, brilliant me, I hit him because I knew he would never throw the first punch. Me and my bright ideas..."
"You what?! Juuhachi-gou! That was a phenomenally stupid thing to do!"
"Tell me about it." The cyborg looked up at Trunks, who was still radiating Super Saiya-jin energy. The point of his blade still quivered at her throat. "Look, either kill me or back off. Okay?"
"Trunks, don't do it." Bulma watched him, seeing Vegeta's fury stamped on the features of the son who never knew him. Trunks was at that moment a very, very dangerous man. A Saiya-jin's temper was nothing to be trifled with. Juuhachi-gou hasn't a clue how close to death she really is...if I hadn't come out here at just that moment, she'd be dead right now.
With a snarl Trunks yanked his blade back and stepped away. Rocks and debris pelted to the ground around them as his golden aura faded. His hair fell around his face and returned to its usual lavender color. "Thank my mother for your life," he growled. He turned his back and flew up into the clear sky and was gone.
Bulma stepped forward and offered Juuhachi-gou her hand. "Don't ever provoke Trunks like that again. You have no idea..."
"I'm beginning to get one. And--thank you." Juuhachi-gou accepted the hand and pulled Bulma right down on top of her. "Ack--! Gomen..."
Bulma pushed off of her, sat up and laughed. "It's all right. I forgot how heavy you really are." Her face grew serious. "Just tread carefully around Trunks from now on, ne?"
"Hai." Juuhachi-gou stood up, took Bulma's hand and pulled her to her feet.
"Well, there's still lunch if you want it. I know you don't eat much, but..."
I"'ll make the effort, but let me get changed first. I hate bleeding all over new clothes, but it's my own stupid fault."
Juuhachi-gou went inside; Bulma paused long enough to look up at the empty sky and sigh. "Trunks..." Shaking her head, she went in and closed the door softly behind her.
*****
Bulma's Journal, 242 days after Cell:
I'm running out of supplies quickly. I didn't know when I started this project of mine how many resources would be depleted, or how fast. I suppose I should be grateful to Juuhachi-gou, in a way; Trunks is so busy being mad at her that he hasn't really bothered to take much notice of what I'm doing. At least she's not giving him any excuses to light into her anymore. All he does is work on his sword and stare at her in sullen silence. I think his journey to the past made him take on a few of his father's less pleasant characteristics. And he used to be such a sweet boy...
Because I have to have specific items, I'm going on the foraging run today. I don't like leaving Capsule Corporation unguarded, especially considering the delicate stage the project has reached; but just for a short while, I think it will be safe to leave.
*****
Juuhachi-gou surveyed the stack of items they'd salvaged from the medical warehouse with a vague sense of apprehension. "Bulma, what the hell are you trying to do anyway?" she muttered to herself. Something in her dead memory was being jostled, and she didn't like the feel of it at all.
She walked over to the warehouse again. She had to scale the side of the building to get in through the skylight Trunks had knocked open. Bulma was reading over her clipboard. "I want to take one last look around, and I'll be done," she was saying to her son. "Just carry those back to the skycar, won't you?"
Trunks noted Juuhachi-gou's approach with an icy blue glare. I'll be back, his eyes told her with a promise that was almost a guarded threat. He flew off with the stack of crates at almost top speed.
When he was gone, Juuhachi-gou cleared her throat. "Bulma...?"
"Hm?" Bulma ticked off another item on her list. "What is it, Juu-chan?"
Juuhachi-gou blinked at the nickname, but she didn't protest. "If I could ask you a question...?"
She noticed Bulma stiffening and immediately her instincts were confirmed. She's hiding something. From her son, and from me. "About what?" Bulma asked, regaining her composure.
"About what we're doing here. The supplies we're gathering. They're very specific."
"I'm running low, that's all." Bulma was speaking very quickly and brightly, with obviously forced briskness. She walked away towards the half-demolished portion of the warehouse, pretending to look for something.
Juuhachi-gou followed her, unwilling to let the subject drop. "On saline solution? Growth hormones? Liquid nutrients? There's no reason you'd need any of that, unless--"
Bulma turned on her, ready to defend herself vigorously. "I just need those things, that's all!" she said hotly. "There's no need to go into detail about--"
She broke off into a scream as Juuhachi-gou charged at her.
*****
"Trunks--!!!!"
His mother's desperate cry made Trunks drop the crates and turn around. "Kaa-san?"
A faint rumble sounded from the warehouse, and before his eyes, the building collapsed on itself.
"KAA-SAAAAAAAN!!!" Trunks flew through the rising cloud of dust and began digging wildly through the debris. He couldn't find her. She wasn't where he'd last seen her. "Kaa-san! Answer me!!!" She couldn't be dead, not his mother, not after all he'd done to protect her, please--
A faint coughing drew his attention, and he began digging afresh in another location. "Kaa-san? Can you hear me?"
More coughing; then, faintly, "...trunks...help..."
He redoubled his efforts and found a denim-clad leg. Within seconds, he had uncovered both his mother and Juuhachi-gou. What he saw made his blood freeze.
The cyborg was on top of his mother, her knees and elbows braced firmly on what was left of the floor. Beneath her, Bulma moved, coughing and blinking. Juuhachi-gou didn't. A large section of the reinforced roof had fallen on top of them, and Juuhachi-gou had taken the brunt of the impact; otherwise, Bulma would have been instantly crushed.
Trunks could only stare for the longest time; his heart couldn't accept what his eyes were seeing, what his brain was telling him must have happened.
Bulma pulled herself up as much as she could under Juuhachi-gou's dead weight. There was blood all over the red CC coveralls, but none of it was hers. She'd sustained a few scrapes and bruises, nothing more. "I think she's still alive," Bulma coughed. "She took the whole weight of the building on her back--she must have heard it getting ready to fall. Juuhachi-gou saved my life, but she's barely breathing. We've got to get her back home quickly."
He didn't move.
"Trunks!!" Bulma shouted at him. "Get a move on. We've got to help her!" she snapped when he still did nothing. "I know you want her to die, but I'll be damned if I let it happen. Especially now." She tried to pull herself out from under Juuhachi-gou's dead weight again, without success. "I'll carry her home on my back if I have to, I'll drag her back..."
Stiffly Trunks bent and scooped up the limp cyborg's dead weight effortlessly in his arms. He flew off to the car without a word. Bulma jumped up, dusted herself off as best she could, and ran after him.
Not a word was spoken on the trip back. Trunks was still holding Juuhachi-gou's limp body, looking into her expressionless face. His mother's words kept coming back to him: Juuhachi-gou saved my life...I know you want her to die, but I'll be damned if I let it happen. Juuhachi-gou saved my life...
He thought if he looked at the jinzouningen's still face long enough, maybe he would understand why she'd done such a thing.
*****
It was almost dark before Juuhachi-gou finally opened her eyes. She lay in the examination bed, her torso and head swathed in bandages, and blinked at the overhead light a few times.
"How are you feeling?" Bulma asked her.
The pale eyes cut over to her. "I'm fine. What about you?"
Bulma rubbed idly at the mouse under her left eye. "I'll live. Thanks to you."
"Why did you do it?" Trunks interrupted.
"Trunks," Bulma warned him.
Juuhachi-gou looked over at him; he stood by the door, leaning against the wall, staring at her with his arms folded. "Do what?" she asked, confused. "Oh, God, what the hell did I do now?"
Bulma tried again. "Trunks, that's enough, leave her alone."
He ignored her. Again, just as his father would have done. "Why did you save my mother? What did you have to gain by risking your existence for an ordinary human's?"
Bulma drew in a breath to launch into a tirade of righteous anger in Juuhachi-gou's defense, but she was cut off by the cyborg's unexpected response. "Enough. I can't take this anymore."
"What?" Bulma gasped.
Juuhachi-gou sat up, removing the bandages from her healed scalp wound. "Bulma, I'm sorry. I like you a lot, and you've been really good to me, but I can't stick around and keep putting you through all this dissention. I even like Trunks, even if he is an arrogant bastard--but I know now he'll never trust me." She frowned at herself. "I guess I can't really blame him for that; I don't even think I can trust myself. If what you say is true, maybe someday I will freak out and start killing again."
"That's not going to happen," Bulma reassured her, with a glare at her son.
"We don't know that for sure." Juuhachi-gou got up and grabbed her clothes from a chair. "I've got to get out of here. I can't stay. I'm sorry."
"Juuhachi-gou, wait!" But she was out the door and gone before the words were out of Bulma's mouth. "Kuso! Trunks, whyever didn't you stop her?"
"Was I supposed to?"
"Oh, for Dende's sake! Baka! Go after her! If she's upset, there's no telling what she might do!"
Trunks nodded. "You're right." He turned and left, his face taking on a terrible grin.
It dawned on Bulma that Trunks would be a hell of a lot more likely to blast Juuhachi-gou into metallic dust than try to reason with her--but he was already gone, well out of earshot, too late to call him back. "Oi, oi..." She collapsed into the chair. "What have I done...?"
*****
Trunks quickly caught sight of Juuhachi-gou; instead of confronting her, he followed her at a safe distance to see what she would do. She didn't seem to be heading anywhere specific, and she was on foot; but she wouldn't tire out, and he couldn't fly after her forever. Somewhere along the line she'd stopped long enough to dress; the black jumpsuit and blonde hair stood out starkly against the barren landscape, making her easy to keep an eye on.
About an hour later she stopped, a few miles away from Capsule Corporation, in what used to be Pepper Town. Trunks touched down behind her, watching her narrowly. The last time he'd set foot in this place, Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou had just finished trashing it and killing everyone who lived there. He was surprised to find himself having difficulty connecting those events to the woman in front of him.
She wandered from place to place, taking everything in. Some of the building structures were still recognizable; others were little more than iron girder skeletons, twisted and warped out of their original shape. From time to time she touched a shattered piece of stonework, scowling slightly. She stopped before the facade of a church that still stood despite the fact that the rest of the structure had long since collapsed. Half the cross surmounted the building, but the ornate inset of stained glass had miraculously survived. Beneath years of dust and grime, the milk-glass representation of a dove descended from a beam of heavenly light, bearing a cluster of olive leaves in its beak.
Trunks landed without a sound behind her. He considered drawing his sword, but decided he wouldn't need it. He moved behind her, every muscle tense, ready to react with deadly finality to the first threatening move she made.
"I did this," she said without turning around, the first indication that she'd been aware of Trunks' presence the whole time.
"You and Juunana-gou," Trunks confirmed.
"I don't remember. I don't remember any of it."
"It won't do any good to be sorry about it now."
"No, it won't. It won't bring these people back to life."
He watched her very carefully. Her back was still to him. He couldn't see her face, and he could read nothing from the set of her shoulders. "Would you do it again?" he asked, a little surprised to hear himself echo his mother's earlier words.
She didn't answer right away. Finally: "I don't know." A deep sigh. "And that scares the hell out of me."
"Hn?!" Trunks started back, blinking.
"I ask, myself the same questions every day. Over and over, and I never get an answer. Can I ever live as a normal person? Will there always be the chance that I might suddenly decide to--to go crazy, and kill every human in sight? What if my memories come back and I remember why I was a killer in the first place? What then?" A funny little catch in her voice broke off her words.
It wasn't possible. Trunks saw his hand touch her shoulder before he was aware he'd made a move. "Oi," he offered awkwardly, "doushitano...?"
With a sound that could only have been a choked-off sob, Juuhachi-gou turned around. He caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes before she pressed her face against his chest. "I'm so afraid," she said. He could feel her trembling. "If I become a monster again, you'll have to kill me, and this time I know you'll make sure I'm dead. I know that, I accept that, I want you to make sure, God, I don't want to kill again...but I don't want to die again either. I just...want..." She trailed off into incomprehensible sobs, muffled against the front of his jacket.
For a long, stunned moment, Trunks couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't even think about thinking. If she'd wanted to--if she'd still wanted to, she could have killed him then, where he stood--snapped his spine, reached up and torn his head off, drawn back and blasted him into oblivion--and he would have been incapable of defending himself. His mind struggled to accept the fact that the thing which ravaged his world, killed his father, killed his teacher and his best friend, the thing which had nearly killed him, was now weeping helplessly against him as though her heart were breaking.
He brought his arms up as though they were made of lead and put first one, then the other, around her thin, trembling shoulders. Her arms locked around his waist, and they simply stood like that for a long time, while the last rays of the dying sun faded around them.
*****
Chapter Two Return to Fan Fiction |
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