Mirai no Senshi
by ICYSHADOWNINJA@AOL.COM
Chapter 3:
"Jinzouningen Senshi"

Trunks lowered his outstretched arm, looking at the Jinzouningen’s closed eyes. "Shimatta," He whispered, to quietly for anyone to here, "I can’t do it." Trunks dropped out of his Super Saiya-jin transformation, his gaze never leaving Juuhachi’s beautiful face.

Juuhachi opened her eyes when she heard the distinct sound of Trunks’s detransformation. She looked at Trunks in confusion, and found him unable to meet her gaze. She looked at him questioningly, as if waiting for an explanation.

Trunks sighed. "I can’t do it, Juuhachi. I can’t kill you in cold blood." That statement brought a look of suprise from everyone in the room (except the oblivious robot Rojo, of course). Trunks expanded his earlier comment. "I can’t even bring myself to hate you anymore, Juuhachi. You’ve paid for your crimes already."

"I killed Son Gohan..."

"Eleven years ago. Juuhachi, I’ve forgiven you already."

"I was the one who killed Vegeta."

"It’s no use being angry with the dead, you can’t do anything to them, and eventually the bitterness will kill you."

"I... I’m not dead anymore..."

Trunks looked at her sternly. "You’ve been given a second chance at life, Juuhachi, both by the universe and by myself. How you live it is up to you, but I hope you’ll try to be the best person you can be. Tell me, now that you’ve seen the horrors of Hell, are you really so devoted to your evil ways as to prefer a return to the Lower World than to live and attempt to seek penance for your past wrongs?"

Juuhachi stammered for a couple of seconds. Gyou mumbled something about Trunks sounding like a ‘ friggin holier-than-thou preacher’. Trunks hadn’t really meant to sound like one, either. Juuhachi and Trunks looked into each other’s eyes.

An’ya took the time while they were both occupied to assess Jinzouningen Juuhachi Gou and Trunks. They were similar frame, similar size, had similar hair... hell, they were even wearing similar outfits. There was just something... odd... about their similarities. An’ya found herself wondering if the other Jinzouningen, Juunana, might have been similar as well.

Trunks... you’re willing to trust me, after all I’ve done... but what of the rest of the world? They won’t forget me. Around you, though, I feel hope... maybe... Juuhachi didn’t know what to say, for once out of snappy retorts, out of ideas.

"Juuhachi, come with me. You weren’t always a bad person... I know, I met you in the past, soon after you were first activated, Juuhachi, when I went back to change history..."

Juuhachi nearly fell over in suprise. Really, she would have if it hadn’t been for the ‘storage pod’ she’d just stepped out of. Gyou, Setsuna, and An’ya had all heard a basic description of Trunks’s trip to the past, but they were still suprised that he’d met Juuhachi after she’d first been activated.

"So... So that’s how you became so strong all of a sudden..."

Trunks narrowed his eyes. "Juuhachi, I’m twenty-six. A year older than I should be, according to all files. Doesn’t that seem a bit odd to you? I spent just over a year training in the past."

"Tr... Trunksu... I’m not disputing you... it’s the only way you could’ve gotten that powerful that quickly... I... I..." Juuhachi shuddered, and dropped slowly to her knees, sobbing. Trunks, moving slowly, gently brushed a hand across her cheek.

"Juuhachi, I..."

She looked up at him. "Don’t apologize, Trunks... you did the right thing... you’ve always tried to do the right thing, even if you knew it’d probably get you killed. If you didn’t, if you’d been more concerned about your own welfare, you’d’ve gotten a lot less scars from me and Juunana..." Juuhachi smiled, albeit faintly. She’d made her decision. "Take me with you, Trunksu... as a student, or whatever you wish, just take me with you. Teach me to be a good person."

Juuhachi and Trunks stared into each other’s eyes.

By Kami-Sama, Trunks can’t be buying this bullshit, can he? Gyou wondered. She’s a Jinzouningen, one of the Kami-Sama damned _androids_! She doesn’t deserve mercy, she needs to be killed! Trunks! If you agree to take her with you, you’ll have lost all of my respect for you. She’s the enemy! She and Juunana killed billions of people, what’s to stop her from doing it again?

"What’s your power frequency?"

Juuhachi looked down at the floor again. "It’s an ultra-low frequency... 3.600567 MHz."

Trunks frowned. "I hate to use that knowledge against you, Juuhachi, but I’ve got to make sure..."

"You’ve got to make sure I’m not just going to turn around and kill you while you sleep. I understand, Trunks... I don’t blame you either. I’m confused right now, I recognize that much... if I turn on you, don’t feel bad about using your knowledge against me..."

"I hope it won’t come to shutting you down, Juuhachi, but I’ll do it if necessary."

Juuhachi looked up at him. "Trunks, if I do turn on you, don’t leave the job unfinished... kill me too... if I do turn on you, I don’t want there to be enough of me left over for me to be recreated again. You’ve got to promise me, Trunks."

Trunks sighed, sadly. "I promise... but I know it won’t come to that, Juuhachi. You’ve just proven it."

***

"Okaasan! We’re back!"

"Is that you Trunks?" Buruma said, looking up from one of her recent ‘projects’. "Did you deal with Dr. Gero’s lab?"

"Hai, Okaasan... but An’ya was hurt, are there any Senzus around?"

Buruma walked into the main room, trying to find where Trunks was yelling from.

"Iie, Trunks, we haven’t had Senzus around sense the gravity room accident last year." Buruma took off her faceplate. She’d been busy welding metal plates together when Trunks had come in. She heard footsteps moving down the stairs, two sets. "Trunks, is that Setsuna with you?"

"Iie, Okaasan, he’s back on his survival training. Okaasan, sit down on the couch a minute, I need to talk to you."

Buruma blinked, this was definitely not like her son. Deciding he might know what he was talking about, Buruma sat down on the couch facing the main hall. A few seconds later, Trunks came around the corner, motioning for someone just out of her line-of-sight to wait.

He turned and looked at his mother. "Okaasan... I’d like you to keep an open mind about something..."

She blinked. This didn’t sound good. Still, she had to find a way to needle her son about it. "What’s wrong, Trunks? Bring a girl home with you?"

He blushed. "Uhh... kind of... I rescued her from Dr. Nijuuichi’s... Dr. Gero’s lab... and..."

"Is she cute?" Buruma asked, not letting him finish. Trunks’s blush deepened.

"Uhh... yeah... cute’s kind of an understatement..."

"When do I get to meet her?"

"Now, if you’ll give me the time to introduce her, Okaasan. Iie! Don’t get up, you’ll understand why in a moment." Buruma blinked, as Trunks stepped away from the hall archway that served as the only entrance (other than the kitchen) to the family room. An incredibly beautiful, and impossible to forget figure stepped into the open.

"Okaasan... Buruma... I’d like you to meet Jinzouningen Juuhachi Gou. Juuhachi, I’d like you to meet my mother, Buruma."

"Ji... Jin... zou... nin... gen..?" Buruma’s jaw dropped, nearly to the floor. She dropped her welding mask, sweat-dropped, then facefaulted, and finally fainted in shock.

***

"So... So you’re really..." Buruma started.

"Yes."

"In... In all the years that you... you know... I never saw you this close."

Juuhachi got a distant look in her eyes. "Not many did get this close." She shivered again, and Buruma did likewise. Looking to change the subject, Juuhachi turned to Trunks. "Trunksu... you spoke of meeting me in an alternate past... what was I like?"

Trunks smiled. "At first, you were very cold, you didn’t much care about anything except Juunana and Juuroku..."

"Juuroku?"

"Jinzouningen Juuroku Gou. He doesn’t exist in our timeline. Big guy, bigger than Juusan was. Eight feet tall, at least." Trunks smiled. "He used to carry you on his shoulder."

"He and I... were close?"

"Iie, not really. He was a complete robot, not like you. Well, anyway, gradually you started showing more of your human side, more of your human emotions... including love. You experienced more human activities, including marriage and motherhood. I met your daughter too... sweet girl, though she takes after her father quite a bit."

"Love?" Juuhachi blinked. "With who? Who’d I marry?"

Trunks smiled. He hadn’t even told his mother this. "Kuriren."

Buruma facefaulted, and Juuhachi turned a rather odd shade of blue.

"I... I married... The... The... The short whiney bald guy?"

Trunks smiled. "Hai."

Juuhachi shook her head violently. "Nonononono... I think you’re lying to me, Trunks-chan. Yamcha, maybe, or Tenshinhan, or maybe even..." Juuhachi shot a look at Buruma, "Well, maybe not _him_, but there’s no way... Kuriren..."

Trunks’s smile widened. "Your daughter’s name is Marron."

Juuhachi paled. "You’re... serious... aren’t you..."

"One-hundred percent."

Juuhachi facefaulted. "I... I think I feel sick..."

Buruma smiled sadly, remembering Kuriren. Well, at least we know you were a man after all, Kuriren.

***

Within two weeks, everyone out training had returned, those who hadn’t been introduced to Juuhachi yet were. Gyou did his best to ignore her completely, never speaking to the Jinzouningen. Trunks knew Gyou’s well-expressed hatred of Juuhachi was hurting the woman, but he was still hopeful that the younger warrior would come around. Truth be told, he understood his trainee’s feelings, he knew them all, he’d felt them all, and let them all pass him by. Anger at the distant pass was futility, he just couldn’t find a way to make Gyou see that.

The others seemed to take Juuhachi in stride, Kakakesei seemed to think of her as just another girl for him to flirt with, while Nekonikoban apparently thought of Juuhachi as just another person capable of kicking his ass in sparring matches. Setsuna looked up to Juuhachi as a warrior of great skill, though he was wary in her presence. An’ya’s injuries, though painful, turned out to be little more than bruised ribs. She made a full recovery in under a week and was probably the only person who considered Juuhachi something of a friend... other than Trunks, that is.

Kaka-kun and Neko-kun seemed to think the survival training had been a waste of time, though they also tended to work harder during training, to prevent any further ‘punishment training’, as they called their week out in the wilderness of the unreconstructed land of Chikyuu sei. Gyou hadn’t learned much from the training, he already knew how to survive in strange places, be they destroyed cities or desert wastelands.

Setsuna and An’ya, however, _had_ actually learned something, though it was mostly about themselves (and therefore personal, and nothing _you_ need to know!). Their training was proceeding the most rapidly of all, though Setsuna had the slowest Ki increase of all of Trunks’s students, he more than made up for that deficiency with the ease it which he learned new attacks, like the Taiyoken.

At Trunks’s prodding, An’ya had started focusing on her Ki attacks. She was too physical, he’d told her, which left her open to distance attacks. She suprised herself by agreeing with him, and began attempting to master Ki projection.

If I was as strong as Trunks, I wouldn’t need to be working on this. She thought, He knows exactly what he’s doing, he trains himself evenly in speed, defense, strength, and Ki power... Sometimes I wonder if he might be the perfect warrior. She grinned, a less than wholesome thought passing through her head. He really is a ‘Super’ Saiya-jin, all right.

For weeks she trained, working exclusively with her Ki, trying to come up with a powerful ranged attack to match her close in fighting. At the end of her third week of training, exhausted, sweaty, and sore, she finally achieved what she’d been trying for. She called her new attack Masaka Yowanewohaku, or ‘never say die’, in homage to the hard work she’d put into the development of the attack. There was only one downside to the move... it took too much of her Ki to be effective except as a last resort attack.

Still, both she and Trunks were quite pleased with her progress.

***

A week after, and a week more proficient with what they’d learned under Trunks’s tutelage, Trunks decided it was time for his students to take a well diserved break. Sitting on the roof, Trunks watched his students with fond nonchalance. Gyou had taken it upon himself to set up a lawnchair outside, and was busy tanning. An’ya was catching up on her reading under an umbrella-covered table. The twins, Neko and Kaka were playing a one-on-one game of basketball, with Kaka leading by three points. Setsuna... Trunks did a doubletake when he spotted Setsuna. The little reptillian alien was coloring in a ‘Warriors of the Tenkaichi Bodukai: Son Gokou’ coloring book, though where he’d gotten such a rare item was beyond Trunks.

"Busy, Trunksu?"

Trunks smiled. "Iie, Juuhachi. Just watching the ‘children’."

Juuhachi sat down beside him. "You’re not _that_ old, Trunksu."

Trunks’s smile turned into a grin. "I know, and I’m half Saiya-jin, which skews the odds in my favor as well." Trunks shrugged, "I don’t know, maybe time is finally catching up to me."

Juuhachi laughed softly. "So the ‘Tick-Tick-Tick’ of your biological clock is getting louder, is it?"

Trunks shot Juuhachi a dirty look, which caused her to laugh out loud. "I suppose you’d know about that, wouldn’t you, Juuhachi?"

"I’m kidding, Trunksu." Juuhachi pulled a knee up, and rested her chin on it. She looked down at Trunks’s students below. "I’m impressed, Trunksu."

He looked over at her. "With what?"

"At the progress you’ve made with your students in a single month. They’re a lot stronger now, all of them." She smiled.

"I hope we’re making progress too... you and I, I mean."

Juuhachi glanced his direction. "You are, Trunksu... don’t worry about such things. So when should we set the date?"

Trunks blinked. "Na... Nani?"

Juuhachi got an evil gleam in her eye. "For the wedding, silly? When’re you planning on telling the students?"

Trunks choked. "W... Wedding... Nani?"

Juuhachi just smiled sweetly as Trunks facefaulted off the roof. Trunks jumped back up quickly enough. "You... You..."

"Yes?" Juuhachi replied, still smiling.

Trunks sighed in defeat. "Cunning woman..."

"Glad you noticed. I had to get you back for that whole ‘Kuriren’ thing, anyways."

"You’re getting back at me for the Truth?"

She smiled. "Hai, and why not? It worked didn’t it? You should’ve seen the look on your face when I mentioned marrage." She laughed, "By Kami-Sama, it was absolutely _priceless_!"

"Well, I’m making progress with your sense of humor, at the very least."

Juuhachi just laughed.

***

An’ya was deeply absorbed in her book, so much so that she’d forgotten the title, and hadn’t seen Trunks fall off the roof.

... she shuddered, as his hand brushed accross her back. ‘Oh, Mamo-chan!’ she gasped, as their bodies pressed together. ‘Usako, my brave little Usako...’ He said, and then kissed her. Their lips met, parted, and met again...

An’ya looked at Trunks, who was back on the roof. I wish he’d kiss me like that, she thought, The more I work with him, the more I realize how absolutely perfect he is. Kind, considerate, respectful, strong... I bet there’s not another guy like him in this universe... if only he wasn’t so sad...

Her revere was interrupted as Kaka pulled the book out of her hands.

"What’ch reading?" He looked at the cover. " ‘Daisuke no Senshi’? What’re you reading this trash for? I really didn’t think you were the romance novels-type, An’ya. Goes to show, I guess you can’t judge a book by it’s cover."

"Chikushoume! Give it back!"

Kaka, still holding the book, took a couple of steps away from An’ya. "Such language! You want the book back, you’re going to have to take it from me."

"Kuso-tare! I’ll tear you apart if you don’t give it back!"

***

Trunks broke off his conversation with Juuhachi. "Sumimasen, Juuhachi. Gotta break up a fight before it happens." With that, he jumped off the roof, and landed in front of Kakakesei. "Give her the book, Kaka-kun."

"Hai, sensei."

Kaka turned to give An’ya her book back, but midway through stopped. Trunks, a look of suprise on his face, looked directly east, as did all of his other students.

"Ku... Kuso... what _is_ that?"

Juuhachi jumped down off the roof. "Trunksu, what is it?"

"I... I don’t know, Juuhachi."

Kaka and Neko looked each other in the eyes, a look of understanding on their faces. "Shimatta," Kaka said, "He’s found us."

Author’s Notes:
Jinzouningen Senshi translates to Robot Soldier
Daisuke no Senshi translates to 'Soldiers of Love'
Kuso translates to ‘shit’
Daiben translates to ‘shit’
Kuso-tare translates to ‘shithead’
Shimatta translates to ‘damn’
Sumimasen translates to 'sorry'
That said, See you in chapter 4!

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