He laid in a pool of his own blood at the bottom of a shallow grave, body broken and beaten. Every time he had gotten up, every time he had tried, every time he had thought he had won, he had been cast down, words and thoughts proven to be folly. No mater how much effort he put towards it, he had always found himself broken.

And now, finally, he found himself in his own grave, barely alive, heart punctured and lungs filling with the blood that normally kept him living. Had he the ability, he would have cursed. Cursed the Gods for his fate, cursed the white Tyrant that had did this to him for his life, and cursed himself for his weakness.

Finding what little strength he still possessed, he rolled over and pulled his head from the blood. One arm after another, one leg slowly shifting at a time, he struggled and managed to crawl forwards. After what felt like an eternity, he reached the top of his grave and was taken back by what he saw there.

The tyrant who his thoughts had settled on laid dead and partially dismembered, body broken and beaten as though nothing but a weak child. Gaze shot quickly to the side catching sight of a golden glow, and as a result settled on what surely was the tyrants killer.

There, in all his golden glory, stood the bastard Saiya-jin raised on Earth, the worthless third class that had stolen his destiny and became the super saiya-jin, had become what he was supposed to be, rendering his own existence worthless, his entire life without meaning.

Taking notice of him, a grin spread across his features and he walked forwards, reaching a hand down towards him, he what was surely an act meant to finish him off.

And then then a brilliant gold and red filled his vision and fire licked at his skin. Pain shot through him as the world exploded, and all was dark.

Breath escaped from him as his body shot up in the darkness, sweat trickling down his exposed skin. At his side a blue haired woman shifted, sheet just barely covering her otherwise naked form, hand knocking over the empty bottle of alcohol sitting on the table beside the bed.

A minor string of explicitness slipped his lips as he stood and shakily walked towards the shower attached to the room, mind still settling back into reality as silver moonlight gave him the illumination that he needed to find his way forwards without tripping over furniture and discarded clothing.

A few minutes later found him in a dark shower, cold water raining down on him in a vain attempt to distract him from his thoughts. His death had been hard on all of them, for each their own reasons. For Vegeta, even in death Kakarotto was still haunting him.

"Your wish cannot be granted..." Their hearts sunk as reality finally had to start sinking in. They had all felt it, had all felt Goku's life force slip into nothing. He had defeated the monster, Frieza, but it had ultimately cost him his own life to do it, but they had remained confident that the Dragonballs would be able to make this tragedy go away.

Guru had died shortly after, his long life finally coming to its natural end. Between his death and the destruction of Namek, the Namakian dragon balls had either been lost or simply obliterated, and they had been forced to learn another rule that restricted the dragonballs.

When created, the dragonballs were woven and created from the fabric of reality itself, and as a result, were attuned to the state of the universe. Simply put, they are attuned to how the world is when they are brought into existence. Anything that has been changed before the dragonballs were created can not be undone. As a result, amongst other things, it would be impossible for a new set of Dragonballs to bring Goku back to life.

There was a way around this, and what they had been planning on. If they were able to get the old Dragonballs, they would be able to simply reactivate them and keep the same attunements that they had possessed. And so they had wished for those dragonballs to either be brought to them or recreated, though Kami had advised them that he wasn't sure if it would work.

"...it is not within my power to create dragonballs." Hearts dropped. The dragonballs had been destroyed, not simply scattered. Dragonballs had a certain amount of magical protection, and they had hopped that it would be enough. With Guru's death, that protection had been lost, and against their hopes, and manor of space peril was responsible for their destruction.

The humans all cried or grew otherwise somber. The brat had screamed. His harpy of a wife had fainted. And through it all, Vegeta had looked on dumbfounded. After everything he had seen of the man, after fighting him, after watching him grow stronger and stronger and even defeat Frieza, it had never even occurred to him that he could be dead for good.

"No..." He whispered. He had spared his life after beating him, let him live. "No." He said a little louder. He had defeated the tyrant he had been destined to crush. Unconsciously his energy level began to rise. "No." Vegeta yelled at no one in particular. He had stolen his destiny, and finally, he had died before Vegeta could catch up and surpass him. "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" He roared, power exploding around him and shaking the very Earth.

His passing had an effect on everyone. Chi-chi had become distraught. Much to everyones surprise, however, rather than becoming even more tightly clung to her son, she had released her control from him. The woman had suspected that Gohan reminded her too much of Goku and she was distancing herself from him, but Vegeta had felt the spikes of power. The only real connection Gohan had to his father was fighting and training, and he was seemingly desperately trying to grasp them. The harpy apparently knew better than to deny him that.

The humans had taken it hard, but Vegeta could care less about their lives. No, the only one he had a moderate amount of interest for was the one laying in his bed, and that was simply because if he got laid at the end of the day depended on her. But that was the here and now, it was no concern of his that she was drinking herself towards an early grave.

He shut off the water and stepped out from the shower, grabbing and towel and beginning to dry himself off. As for him, this had been his routine ever since that day. He would wake up in the early mornings, almost always being haunted by some variation of that dream, and crawl out of the bed sometimes waking the woman and sometimes not. He would then take a short shower before going down to the gravity room and training himself. Sometimes it was simply passed exhaustion, at other times it was near death. In reality, the only shifting variable in his having sex was if he was unconscious in a hospital bed. At some point during the day he would eat enough for a city block, and then return to training. At night, he would work off some frustration on the woman, and then pass out to do it over again the next day.

And every day, he asked himself over and over again what the point was. The legend had already been fulfilled, his fate had been stolen from him. Revenge might have driven him, but the person responsible for it all was dead and wasn't coming back. He was the strongest being in the Universe, not through destiny or any accomplishment of his own, but simply because the strongest two had killed themselves. He hadn't climbed to the top of the mountain. It had exploded, and he had found himself laying on top of the rubble that it once was.