He is old.
His hair is falling. They are not grey, so there is no way anyone could have told that he is old. But he is old, he is not as strong as he was in the days long ago. Those days were his prime, when he and the world was at its zenith. He had been wild, yet at the same time, blindedly focused on a certain aim.
The world had no use for him, now, and it never will for the likes of him anymore. The world had rocked at the point of peril many times so long ago, many times caused by him. He smiled. His classic smirk. Funny how someone who mattered so much to him blamed all of the things that rocked the world on himself, and then slipped through his fingers, ran away from him, for the troubles that he caused.
The world had no use for warriors. Despite the way he looked down at her and how she was ignored by those around her for being fussy and unrealistic, she turned out right.
He walked among the leaves, breaking twigs with his firm, yet elegantly dignified footsteps. The footsteps of a prince. Thunder rumbled as dark clouds rolled across the sky.
He passed by the first tombstone.
Chichi. Son Chichi.
During his entire lifetime, he had never met such an annoying woman in his life. She was among the weakest of them all, her ki level never reaching beyond a hundred, and because she had not trained herself for a long time, she could barely be any use fighting anybody they came across. She was shunned and ignored as a silly little bitch.
Yet time and time again, she won. She controlled Kakarotto, she controlled Gohan, and no matter how many times they rebelled against her, she won eventually. Gohan was a scholar, Goten entered university, and as for Kakarotto...he never showed any public form of affection for her, but the fact that he kept returning to her time and time again was proof enough of the hold she had over the warriors of the Son family. And she won, again, even in her death. She had been proven right. He was useless in this new world.
The second tombstone. That stood over an empty grave.
Son Goku. Kakarotto.
No man had ever mattered so much to him as this third class soldier, yet perhaps the greatest warrior he had ever come across. No one ever would. He had sworn to himself that he would kill anybody who dared to kill Kakarotto, or harm him until it caused a permanent damage. Kakarotto was his to kill, his to destroy, his to humble.
No one must ever come his way. He had trained himself tirelessly, endlessly, putting himself through painful suffering for the mere sake of going Super Saiya-jin, just so he could keep up with him.
But he never could.
Kakarotto was always, always, one step ahead of him.
He hated Kakarotto. He hated him beyond the hatred he felt for the loser Saiya-jins, like Nappa and Radietz. Losers. He was disgusted by them. He hated him more than he hated Frieza, who caused him to cry, for the first time in his life. Not tears of sadness, but of anger, pain and frustration.
He had never known frustration before he met Kakarotto. He was so certain of himself. He was the Prince, and should be rightfully the King of the Saiya-jins. He was the best there has ever been, and the best there ever was. Kakarotto was a rude awakening for him. Kakarotto broke his dillusion of invulnerability, forcing realiy into the front of his face: he was a prince of nobody and he was a loser.
Kakarotto had always been a realist. He was not. He hated Kakarotto, because Kakarotto...
A soft drizzle began, pouring over him. In a short time, a heavy downpour would follow. He knew he had to get back quick, but he did not feel as if he wanted to go back, yet.
...because he meant so much to him.
It was Kakarotto who, through his affections for his family and friends, that challenged him to love others. And it was Kakarotto who truly understood him yet had been kind enough not to use his weaknesses against him, even treated him as a friend..and something more. Kakarotto had loved him, not a sexual love, but a pure, simple love.
And he had sworn that he would kill anyone who dared to kill him. Kakarotto was his last link to an old world that was gone, and the only one who could understand that odd sentimentality in him. In a way, he had loved Kakarotto as well.
But Kakarotto had always been cruel to the ones that loved him the most. Time and time again, Kakarotto, with the full knowledge of how much he mattered to him, slipped through his fingers. His death, the first time, with Cell. His death again, by merging with the dragon balls...for the sake of balls of stone he would leave his family, his friends...would leave him. Alone. Frightened.
Yet no one understood him as much as Kakarotto did. Somehow, Kakarotto knew that he would make it and survive in the wilderness that he was thrown to, and that he would find an aim and a reason to go on living, though his spirit would be broken.
He walked on, and came across a rich, elegant, yet simple tombstone.
The third one.
Bulma Briefs.
An Earthling. A female Earthling.
He would never understand how he could have found himself bonded with her, even in her death. She was nothing more than a weakling..but he knew better. Bulma was never a weakling. She had been strong, all the time. Had he not heard from Mirai Trunks himself, what she had been through and how she had carried the weight of the world on her shoulders in that world where he had been killed by tin cans?
She had understood him.
Bulma. An annoying, boy-crazy, know-it-all little bitch. She had been the only one who could empathise him, with the exception of Kakarotto. But more than merely empathise, she was a mirror of himself: equally selfish and equally proud.
And she was his aim and reason for living. In a dreamworld of frightening nightmares and strange visions that was, of all things, horrifiyngly real, she had been the one thing he could hold on to. She had been there for him, even though she never did it beyond the point of subtle, for the times Kakarotto had left him.
And he loved her. He had never told that to her, and those were the only words she had longed to hear from him. He thought of telling that to her, one day. But he never did. He loved her. It was as simple as that.
But she was gone, forever. Everything that he had lived for was dead.
He kneeled on the wet ground. The drizzle was now a heavy downpour. Good. Let it rain, no one could tell the difference with rain and tears then.
Gone. Everything he lived for was gone, gone. What reason was there to live, anymore? How could he go on living in a world which he had no aim nor focus for? A world which he had every power to destroy, but he could not, and the world, very slowly, like poison, destroying him. The world had no need for fighters. Everything he had lived for in this dreamworld, was dead.
Why? Why did they have to go? Why did every single reason he lived for had to slip from his fingers?
"Papa..."
He turned and saw Bra standing behind him.
"I thought I'd find you here, Papa," she said with a smile. With her bright lavender hair and blue eyes, she was the exact mirror of her mother. Save for her scowl, which was definitely his. Trunks had accused him for favouring Bra many times, and he had. Trunks was the result of a one-night stand, Bra was a child of love. Besides, Bra looked so much like Bulma...and at the age of fifty, she carried the same elegance and beauty that his mother did when she was her age.
He is old. He had lived long, and he had lost all his reason to live when Kakarotto and Bulma had left him many, many years ago, a long time ago. All but one.
"Well, Papa, aren't you coming with me?" she held out her umbrella to him, inviting him to get under the shade. "Or are you coming later?"
He got up. "Coming, Bra."
Note:I got the inspiration for writing this fic while listening to the song 'Kiss From A Rose', hence the title. I realise, too, that this is not the typical style of DBZ. No violence, no action, but a lot of melodrama. Sorry if it just was not to your taste ^^;;;
Okay..just to clear some things up...a couple of people have been commenting that Goku died the first time during the battle with Radietz. He did. When I said 'the first time' in this story, I meant the death of Goku the affected Vejiita during the Cell battle. It isn't possible for Vejii-boy to be affected by any deaths of Goku that came before him, since well, he wasn't there. Why do I say that Vejiita was affected by that particular death of Goku? Well, he said 'I will never fight again...' after that incident (or so my manga translation says) so it must have been a pretty hard hit on him. I guess only Toriyama knows what Vejiita really means by 'I will never fight again' - whether it is a broken ego or something else - but my guess is that Vejiita must have felt lost after the object of his obsession was gone.
Katharin A.R. Chung
http://redrival.com/karc