Chapter Sixty-Eight

Gohan didn't seem to understand that everyone had gathered for him. It mattered not--he was thrilled regardless. For some reason, no one person every stayed around him for very long...he'd asked them about that and gotten the usual odd looks and soothing gestures in response. Videl pet him, which was nice, but her eyes kept leaking and he was certain that wasn't the way she was supposed to look. He'd seen her smile once, when she'd been looking somewhere else; she was so pretty when she smiled.

Sitting where he'd been placed, Gohan watched the general bustle carefully, just in case she smiled again. Besides, there wasn't that much else to do...

Oh, wait there was something. Gohan could still sense ki, and it was immensely fun to track--

Ooh...Purple was here. Gohan didn't have a name from the remains of his memory to attach to the face (it was over a month at home before he associated names with faces, even in his mind), but he did remember Purple being nice to him on the trip home from...from...eh. Gohan let it go; there were better, more pleasant things to think about, especially with so many people here. They glowed.

"Don't you see that you glow?"

No one answered. No one looked up, either, so they must not have heard him. That was okay. He'd ask them again later, if he remembered. There was something else he was supposed to remember, too, important, and he only remembered when he was asleep. He wasn't sleepy now--not with all this excitement and new visitor--so that would have to wait.

Besides, it wasn't like the dragon saw him...

* * * * *

Having failed in his efforts to convince the brat to die on its own, Juunanagou had moved on to the next logical step, which was to leave the smelly screeching thing in a corner and wait for it to howl itself to death. Ah, for the day when that wretched little sack of shit would shut the bloody hell up...

It was not lost on him that he had brought the child himself, but that didn't matter; he'd only done it to upset Trunks, and Juunana could be certain he'd succeeded in that. It wasn't really a victory, per se, but it felt a little bit like one, and that was good enough. Now that the screaming old bitch was dead, he could get on to more important things, like...

Well, with the wealth of possibilities at his fingertips, it made perfect sense that he hadn't decided yet. Besides, he didn't have to find something specific to do: for now he was just joyriding and having a great time, thank-you-very-much. Ugh, scratch that--joyriding and babysitting.

It wasn't like he was taking care of the kid or anything stupid like that. When the constant noise became simply too much, he threw some food or water at the brat, or made use of ki manipulation to clean the thing without touching it; it shut Kabu up for at least a little while. The blessed silence, Juunanagou had decided, was well worth the break in his impromptu vow to live and let die.

"If you get any more annoying, I will kill you, you know that, squirt?" Juunana growled over his shoulder. Kabu returned the growl in kind and attempted to throw an empty glass bottle with what speed he judged to be sufficiently lethal. It might have been...had Juunanagou been human and had the bottle not crashed several feet wide of its mark. Faster than Kabu's infant eyes could follow, the android whipped back the intact neck of the bottle to shatter with stunning force precisely six inches above Kabu's head. Juunana chuckled darkly at the baby's gasp, smug look fading only slightly as Kabu progressed naturally (and inevitably) into more furious screaming.

Secretly, Juunanagou wondered just what sort of drug Takira had fed the kid to keep him quiet so much of the time. Whatever it was, Juunana couldn't help thinking that he could use some of it, himself.

Perhaps he would head back to Earth; not to stay (the planet was boring as all hell--it was the reason he'd left in the first place), just to drop off the brat...perhaps dead. Of course, Trunks hadn't bothered to follow when Juunana first took the kid (damned disappointing), so maybe he didn't actually care about his son. Ooh, maybe Trunks would kill the monkey-tailed little crap-factory himself.

Now that would be worth staying to see--and what better way to top off Takira's execution, ne? Oh, this would be perfect: a few strings pulled here and there and the stage would be set. Juunanagou smirked viciously at the still-howling child; just went to prove his long-held axiom that entertainment could be found in any situation...

* * * * *

In circumstances lacking any real humor, Kaio had to resort to noting simple irony; it did less to lift his spirits, of course, but it remained marginally better than nothing. Just at the moment, he was attempting to draw amusement from the fact that despite the combined (and widely varied) power of all present, his planet had not yet been destroyed. Granted, it could be argued that it was only a matter of time...Bubbles and Gregory (peeking wide-eyed from beneath the car) seemed to be of that opinion. Vegeta distractedly toyed with the idea of spooking the stupid little creatures just to watch them run, then cast the thought aside as Chilli became steadily more annoying.

Annoying, Kaio noted, equated with knowing too much, and what the Retsujin female did not know, she guessed with occasionally haunting accuracy; the result was a dangerously agitated Vegeta--and, therefore, a bristling-protective Takira who now, having found her sovereign, was hell-bent to protect him: body, mind, honor and soul. The atmosphere varied from tense to overtly loud; Kaio sighed and, setting his tea aside, attempted to step back in as mediator.

"Let's try again, shall we?" he said as brightly as he could muster, ignoring withering looks from the two primary combatants (Takira having retreated to the sidelines at Vegeta's request--read: command). "Chilli, can you explain...ah, specifically...just what you were trying to do?"

Vegeta muttered something unpleasant, earning himself an icy glare, a fearful glance, and an exasperated sigh from the respective members of his audience. Undaunted (and unamused), Chilli proceeded to ignore the Saiyajin utterly as she launched into her explanation.

"I was trying, god, to finalize the state of the trinity...in the interests of stability. They were not guaranteed to remain alive if I let them go, but with the lesser dragons gone, death seemed to be suitably permanent."

"Ah...yes," Kaio said warily, "but what difference did you think it would make to keep all three in one world or another?"

"Isolation, fool," Chilli snapped coolly. "Ideally they would be kept alive, the living world would cease to be, and we could rebuild from below, but since Saiyajin have such a talent for dying--"

Vegeta's exhale wavered on the edge of a hiss; Kaio muttered and pushed his glasses higher on his nose--which would have been more convincing but for his lack of such feature.

"Keeping personal squabbles out of this just for the moment...you have an, um, interesting theory, but I'm afraid it's failing at several points."

Pale yellow eyes shifted toward Kaio, unblinking. "Oh?"

Kaio shifted. "Setting aside the intricacies of living/dead isolationism, I'm still not quite sure how you intended to kill all three when you had only one in front of you."

Chilli's face tightened fractionally. "One?"

"One...and that one, you let go; I fear you may have been a bit, erm, misguided in your assumptions. Who were you trying to kill?"

"The derelict and both halves of duality," she retorted with a terse sigh.

"Correct as far as it goes, but...which did you think they were?"

Chilli blinked, then easily resumed composure. "The sons of the originals, of course. Are you really such a simpleton or are you trying to test me?"

"Ah. Well...heh. You know, this is really the funny part..."

"I am not in the mood for amusement, god," Chilli retorted softly.

"Well, you see, it's like this: the trinity isn't really, erm, passed on the way you think it is. Actually, the fact that it was passed on at all is against the rules, but...eh, that's Goku for you."

"And Kakarotto," Vegeta added quietly, with a subtle--but no less smug--smile at Chilli.

Kaio sighed. "Yes, and Kakarotto. Never thought I'd see the day when you were easier to track, Vegeta."

"What's this...?" Chilli asked, tone carefully disinterested--thin body tense.

"Your mistake, witch," Vegeta chuckled darkly. "I'm part of it, aren't I? So I am told, at least...and here I am."

"And..."

"...and what possible reason could I have for passing that burden to my son?"

A chiding sound from Kaio interrupted Chilli's sharp retort.

"That's not the point," he muttered. "The point is that he couldn't have placed that sort of mark on a soul without losing his identity completely--and, as he said, he's still here, in all his...ah, him," the kaio sniffed critically. "Anyhow, long story short, he never changed, so Trunks isn't really what you're after."

"Then why was Moreviv protecting the boy?" Chilli hissed.

Vegeta's jaw tensed, which fact was lost on neither Kaio nor Chilli. Takira might have noticed but for the fact that her shoulders had hunched far enough that her only visible focus was the patch of grass immediately in front of her feet. Thus, she was unprepared for the thin tail abruptly at her throat, tilting her chin up to look into narrow yellow eyes. Vegeta's warning growl was ignored as the Retsujin drew a step closer, peering intently. The faint smile touching her lips didn't reach her eyes as she murmured:

"You didn't even tell him...did you."