Chapter 23 – Epilogue Entry I

Her dress and hair looked perfect. The way her shoulder-length hair was tied back in a bun showing off the sleekness of her long neck made Chiri stare in confused awe. How Eighteen managed to look so beautiful and yet so pissed off no matter what she was put in, Chiri never knew. At least the usual bothered expression was absent today – and so it ought to be. Her husband stood beside her, a full head-and-a-half shorter than her. He must have felt like the luckiest guy in the world to have a wife as beautiful and as intelligent as her, Chiri thought.

How they'd gotten together, she'd never know. There was even talk about Eighteen expecting. Chiri didn't know whether to believe that or not. If there were truth to it, she wondered what the baby would look like, coming from a robot (or so Chiri falsely assumed Eighteen to be, despite Gohan having explained to her several times Eighteen was technically a cyborg!) Her mother had told her off when she'd asked this question earlier. Chiri didn't get why Chichi had seemed so embarrassed.

Would her father had believed them when they'd heard the news these two were intending to marry? If only he were still here. It would have meant so much to Krillin and the others for him to have been able to join in with the celebrations. As they officially became husband a wife and walked back down the aisle, Chiri thought ahead to her own future. Would she be walking down the aisle one day with someone, wondering how her father would have felt knowing he'd missed that important event in his only daughter's life? She would never have imagined he wouldn't have been around to see the day any of his children married or became a parent themselves. He was going to miss so many moments like these, moments that brought those he'd met through his short life together. He should have been here to see this.

"What's wrong?" Goten asked, startling her from her reverie.

"Nothing," Chiri responded, consciously making herself smile.

Everyone around her all seemed so happy, so oblivious to the missing person in the group. Yet she knew none of them had forgotten him. They all knew he should have been here to wish his best friend all the happiness he could. Maybe he was watching them from wherever it was he resided. She hoped so.

She'd kept up her training. Chances were, he probably was too.

"They look so wonderful together, what a beautiful ceremony," Chichi beamed. "Such a beautiful day for a wedding."

"Yeah," Gohan nodded.

Chiri agreed. The bright sky above was uninterrupted as far as the horizon stretched. Everything seemed clear and peaceful, the pressure that had sat deeply within their little group had vanished and had been replaced by a new, life-affirming vibe of positivity. It was strange to Chiri, having spent the first few years of her life living in hostile, threatening times. She didn't know how to feel about it; the carefree feel was nice but it made her feel like she had to be on-guard, just in case something snatched it away. But perhaps she was just being pessimistic.

Who knew what would happen to them five years or ten years down the line? Perhaps it was best to just live for every day as it came. So she would spend her time doing what she felt was best; following her mother's wishes to study but also making sure there was someone there willing to step up to her father's mantle and be ready for the next big bad.

To be continued!

Thank you to all of you who have stuck with and supported this story. Of course there is more to come for Chiri, we can't leave her here at this point in her life. However, I made the decision to write the next part of her life under a different story, to keep chapter spaces down but also to break down the different stages of her life. As of now, the first couple of chapters of Chiri's teen years have been written but I plan to take a small break from uploading on here. I aim to post the first chapter during the first week of October 2015.

Once again, thank you to you all.

-LilDBZBuddy89