Conversation in the Time Chamber

Future Trunks tells Vegeta where he got that sword- and what he had to do to earn it.

"Oh, come off it," I tell the boy, in the face of yet another lecture on morals. "You've never even killed before. And don't tell me 'Frieza and his father'," I add, forestalling the argument I can see coming. "You cut those two down in a fit of righteous anger, you've never actually murdered someone in cold blood."

He stares at me, her eyes looking out of my face, and then eventually drops his gaze, though his posture tells me he has not conceded the point.

"I did, once," he says softly, and I can tell right away he's not lying. "It was a friend of mine," he volunteers, and I'm shocked.

"You don't say," I mock dismissively, hoping to get a rise out of him. He is far more Bulma's son than he is mine, for all that his hair turns gold when he wills it, and this revelation is too unexpected to simply leave alone. A few purple locks are briefly outlined against the unrelieved white of this place as he turns his head sharply to study me; I give the boy nothing to look at but a slight smirk. Eventually he inclines his head back down, far too coy and submissive a gesture to have ever come from me.

"Yeah. His name was Tapion. He had a monster inside him, and the only way to keep it from destroying everything was to kill him. Mom spent days trying to figure out a way to contain it, but in the end I had to kill him. The sword," he says, an aborted gesture towards a sheath he no longer wears accompanying his words, "that I killed Freiza with was his."

I only make a small noise of acknowledgement so he knows I heard, but I can see now where that slight pain in his eyes comes from. It's nothing, I know well, to the sharp stink of despair or the dull-eyed acceptance that was common among those who followed Frieza but could not embrace his style of madness. I had been one of the few that still had bright rebellion in their eyes before he killed me, but only just. This boy has none of that, only a vague sense of sadness that is too delicate to have lasted in Frieza's court for very long.

It is almost worse, to know that this whelp has indeed touched the face of the killer inside him and can still spout the sentimental nonsense Kakarot and his ilk like to hold on to. It makes me think about things I don't think about anymore, and I jump up and declare the break over.