#i will wait until i see how far shueisha takes this

[shihalyfie]

Kizuna itself vs. the two versions of the novel

Written on request from a friend who wanted to remain anonymous. This is more of an editorial than a meta, and while I usually have a policy of “this is an analysis blog, not a review blog” it goes into more of my personal impressions and opinions than usual, but it’s something I write hoping to be helpful.

There are basically three “official” full versions of Kizuna: one being, of course, the movie itself, one being the Dash X Bunko version of the novel, and one being the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version of it. While it’s certainly not to say that any of the three is an “incomplete” version of the narrative, if you really want as full of a picture of the story as possible, somehow, each of all three versions of the story happens to have really important information that the other two do not. If I had to pick only one of these three versions to recommend to people, I would of course pick the movie itself; it’s obviously the base story everything else is based off of and was the one the production centered around as a priority, but the novelizations have a surprising amount of info that provide a lot of insight into the movie’s story and themes.

I get the impression that the creation of Kizuna involved making a lot more story and background details than could fit in a 95-minute movie, so these novelizations, which were based directly off the original movie script, ended up being an outlet for a lot of these details (and as much as I could be harsh on the movie itself for being a bit “reliant” on extra material, I have to admit that Adventure and 02 were both like this too -- a lot of our current understanding of the series comes from the Adventure novels and drama CDs -- so frankly I’m thankful we at least got this with a 95-minute movie instead of a yearlong series). On the flip side, while I'm not going to say that the novels are completely and utterly inaccurate representations of the movie, in a perhaps too-close approximation of Adventure and 02's writing style, this is a movie where even the nuances in a single line or split-second moment carry heavy implications, which become much blurrier or harder to identify when they’re presented differently (or not even presented at all) in the novel’s context, especially when they emphasize very different things from what the movie itself was emphasizing.

The short version of this is that I believe the Dash X version contains the greater amount of “plot and story” information but significantly misses out on the emotional themes and presentation, whereas the Shueisha Mirai version abridges and cuts chunks of content but is much better at conveying the intended message. More on this below the cut. (Note that the following post spoils Kizuna’s plot events.)

The movie itself

Since the following parts are more “in comparison to the movie”, I’m not going to go too much into this in this section, but one thing I will say is that the official English subtitle translation for the movie is really not great. Even if you take out nitpickiness about the fact it misses several significant nuances (the difference between “unchangeable fate” and “changeable destiny”, or the fact that Gennai refers to partnership dissolution as a “case” and not like it’s something that happens overall) at really plot-important moments, some lines (thankfully, usually not plot-important ones) are just straight-up incorrect. And worse, there’s evidence the official English dub was based on that translation! (I’m not faulting the people in charge of the dub for this, but whoever handed them that translation to work with.)

The dialogue in the Dash X Bunko version is transcribed effectively word-for-word from the dialogue in the movie (or perhaps vice versa, given that the novel is based on the original script), so I highly recommend checking that version as a reference for dialogue or if you want to do any intimate analysis on it. I don't want to go as far as to suggest not supporting the official version of the movie because of this, but at least please be aware that the translation used there is not entirely reliable.

Dash X Bunko

If you talk about “the Kizuna novel”, this is the one that people usually tend to be referring to, for two reasons. Firstly, it was translated shortly after the movie’s release, and due to the unfortunate circumstances of Kizuna being delayed in accessibility outside Japan for several months, this basically served as the only comprehensive source of info about the movie outside Japan for a very long time. Secondly, in Japan, this one was marketed as “the one for adults” in contrast to the Shueisha Mirai one being “for kids”, which meant that a lot of people assumed that the latter one was just an incredibly stripped down version that was otherwise disposable or replaceable. (This is very, very much not the case, and is extremely ironic when it comes to a movie that partially centers around the dangers of looking down too much on things associated with childhood.)

When it comes to “plot and story info”, this is the one that probably serves as the best reference (especially for fanfic writers or those who need a refresher on certain plot events or to look up something quickly), and probably has the most “comprehensive” listing of plot events surrounding the movie. The dialogue in it is a word-for-word recreation of the movie’s script, and actually includes more scenes than the movie itself does, including two that I suspect to be deleted scenes (a detailing of the specifics behind the initial plan to pursue Eosmon, and a conversation between Koushirou and Tentomon) and adaptations of the first and second memorial shorts within their context in the movie. It also contains some interesting background details and extra context for some things in the movie that you might think would normally be animation flair or something, but take a very interesting implication of story importance if they’re going out of their way to write this in the script. (There’s a scene where Agumon and Gabumon appear in front of their partners when they’d been behind them a minute before, and it’s easy to think this might be an animation error, but not only does the surrounding context make this unlikely, the novel itself actually directly states that their positions had changed.) Given that, I think it was very fortunate that this novel was available to us for those outside Japan waiting for the actual movie to come out, because this level of detail was very important to have on hand rather than fragmented spoilers on social media.

However, the part where I think the novel is significantly deficient in compared to the actual movie (and also to the other version of the novel) is that it describes the plot events in too blunt of a manner and doesn’t bring out its themes very well. (It’s kind of like having a long and very detailed Wikipedia article plot summary; it definitely got all the hard facts down, but the emotion is gone, which is still a pretty significant issue when media’s all about the feelings and message in the end.) While “considering the movie to be more cynical than it’s probably meant to be” happens regardless of which version someone’s working from, I’ve talked to perhaps an unnervingly high number of people who started with the novel and were absolutely convinced that the movie’s message was about adulthood sucking and needing to just accept it, until they saw how the actual movie pulled it off and the surrounding atmosphere and realized it definitely was not. (I think one really big factor here is that a lot of the visual imagery makes it extremely, extremely hard to miss that Menoa’s mentality is completely screwed up and her way of seeing things was dubious to begin with; prose descriptions really just don’t capture the way they slam this in your face with visual and musical cues during the climax of the movie.)

You can figure this out from the novel itself, but you have to really be looking closely at the way they word things, and on top of that it’s hard to figure out which parts you should be focusing on and which parts aren’t actually that important -- in other words, the “choice of priorities” gets a bit lost in there. Even the little things lose a lot of value; it’s theoretically possible to use the novel to put together that Daisuke is wearing his sunglasses indoors during his first scene, but you have to put together the context clues from completely different paragraphs to figure this out, none of which compares to the actual hilarity of visually seeing him wearing the thing in a very obviously dimly lit restaurant because he’s our beloved idiot. (For more details, please see my post with more elaboration on this and more examples of this kind of thing.)

I wouldn’t say that the movie itself isn’t guilty of (perhaps accidentally) having some degree of mixed messaging, but I would say this problem is rather exacerbated by the novel’s way of presenting it due to its dedication to dropping every single plot detail and event without much in the way of choosing what to contextualize and what to put emphasis on (as it turns out, treating practically everything in the movie as if it has equal weight might not be a great idea). So, again, for that reason I think the novel serves as a good reference in terms of remembering what happened in it and knowing the movie’s contents, but I also feel that it’s really not the greatest deliverer of the movie’s message or themes at all.

Shueisha Mirai Bunko

The second version of the novel was not translated until several months after the movie first released, and shortly before the Blu-ray and streaming versions of the movie itself came out anyway, so my impression is that on this end a lot of people don’t even know it was a thing. On top of that, even those who know about it often dismiss it as the “kid version” -- and to be fair, it did baffle quite a few people as to why this version even exists (Kizuna is technically not unacceptable for kid viewing and its plot is still understandable regardless of age, but since the movie is so heavily about the millennial existential crisis, it’s not something kids would really relate to). So a lot of people tended to just skip over it...which is really a shame, because it contains some interesting things that actually aren’t in the other two versions at all. For instance, did you know that, as of this writing, this is the only thing that plainly states the specific explanation for why Yamato decided to become an astronaut, for the first time in 20 real-life years?

While there are still some things that weren’t in the movie proper (mainly the Eosmon initial plan and the adaptation of the second memorial short), for the most part, the actual events are somewhat abridged compared to the movie and the Dash X version, and other than a few stray lines, there’s not a lot of extra information that would be as helpful for referencing the events of the plot. The version of the novel here is rather broadly interpretive of the scenes in the movie, so several things are condensed or taken out (and, amusingly, because it’s assuming that the kids reading this don’t actually know the original Adventure or 02, it has to describe what each character is like in a quick one-liner).

However, interestingly enough, it’s because it’s so heavily interpretive that it illuminates a lot of things that weren’t really easy to glean out of the Dash X version. For instance:

Some scenes are described with “other perspectives” that give you info on someone else’s point of view. (For instance, we see more of Yamato’s perspective and thoughts when he has his first phone call with Daisuke, or a bit more detail in the process of how Eosmon kidnappings work.)

We get a lot more information on what’s going through everyone’s heads during each scene, and what emotions they’re feeling at a given time. (This is something that you could at least get to some degree in the movie itself from facial expressions and framing, but would often be a lot blurrier in the Dash X version; here, it’s spelled out in words.)

When things are abridged, you get a clearer idea of what the intended point and theme of the scene was because it’s stripped down to include only that part. In one really interesting case, the scene with Agumon finding Taichi’s AVs has a “censored” equivalent where Taichi’s pushed to a corner because he can’t find anything non-alcoholic in his fridge -- so when you look at the two versions of the scene and what they have in common, you can figure out that the point isn’t that it was a lewd joke for the sake of it, but rather that Taichi’s forcing himself into boxes of “adulthood” that are actually meaningless and impractical.

Some of the descriptions of the characters, scenes, and background information make it a lot more obvious as to their purpose in the narrative (it outright confirms that Miyako being in Spain means that her personality is getting overly enabled there).

The scene where the circumstances behind Morphomon’s disappearance are revealed makes it significantly less subtle what the point is. In the actual movie, a lot of this involved visual framing with Menoa seeming to become more and more distant, but in this version of the novel they basically whack you over the head with the final confirmation that Menoa is guilty of neglecting her own partner, which contradicts her own assertions that “they were always together” (maybe not emotionally, it seems!) and helps clarify the commonality between her, Taichi, Yamato, and Sora in what exactly led to their partners disappearing.

Bonus: this version of the novel really wants you to know that the ending of the movie is about Taichi and Yamato fully having the determination to turn things around and lead up to the 02 epilogue. (The movie’s version of this involves the extended version of Taichi’s thesis and the credits photo with Yamato obviously next to a rocket, while this novel’s version involves more detailed fleshing out of how Taichi and Yamato decided to use their experiences to move onto their eventual career paths and what kind of hope they still have at the end. The Dash X version...didn’t really have a very strong equivalent here.)

In other words, while this version of the novel isn’t the greatest reference for plot or worldbuilding, it does a much more effective job being straightforward about the intended themes and message of the movie, and even if the scenes in it are much more loosely adapted, it’s much better at adapting the emotional nuances of the things that would normally be conveyed via visuals, expressions, and voice acting. (Although I would still say that the movie itself is the best reference for that kind of thing, of course.) If you just want lore or plot ideas, I don’t think it’ll help you very much, but since this series is so much about characters that had their ways of thinking fleshed out in such incredible detail, and about strong theme messaging, this is all still very valuable information in its own way.

[makeste]

You probably have a dozen asks telling you this, but it Mangastream and Jaikini's Box have both stopped scanslating all WSJ mangas, including MHA

no other asks about it yet, but I’m aware! so it looks like we’ll be moving from Friday morning releases to Sunday afternoon releases (depending on your time zone anyway, but I live in the U.S. on the east coast) for the time being, and relying on the official scans on Viz and Manga Plus. incidentally I’ve seen a few people worried about those sites only archiving the last 3 chapters, but (a) if you live in the U.S. and can afford yet another subscription service (a potentially tall order, I know), Viz has the entire series online and it’s nice to know you’re supporting the authors that way, and (b) without linking anything, I will say that there are close to a dozen sites I can think of off the top of my head that still have all the WSJ manga archived, and probably won’t be going down anytime soon. just google “read [name of series] online” (and make sure you have a good ad blocker enabled because trust me you will need it), and you should be fine.

I’ll also add that this is far from the first time Shueisha has cracked down on scanlators, and while I’m fine waiting for the legal release (though I’ll have to beware spoilers for a few extra days), I’m also close to 100% sure that a new scanlation group will eventually rise from the ashes, just because that’s how these things always seem to go. for better or worse, piracy, uh, finds a way.

unfortunately I will be busy this particular Sunday, so my recap will either be really late, or possibly not up until Monday morning (which I do happen to have off what with the holidays). for today, I’ll post a recap of last week’s release of the Bakugou & Deku Rising bonus chapter instead, probably this afternoon.

(ETA: actually it’ll either be late tonight, or sometime tomorrow afternoon instead guys, I’m sorry. I got hit with this massive wave of fatigue, so I’m gonna take a nap and see if that helps or if my body is trying to tell me to cool it for the rest of the day. the holidays are too fucking stressful and also just too damn cold orz.

ETA 2: just. ignore everything I say always. sob. so this is apparently not one of those weekends where things go as planned. I’ll post the BakuDeku Rising recap some other time and will most likely do the 255 recap Monday. sorry guys. ;; )

[ninthfeather]

I went exploring in MangaPlus and found some pretty neat stuff

Shueisha has released a free manga-reading site/app called MangaPlus. It simul-publishes chapters and generally gives people outside of Japan more access to manga. It’s designed to combat pirating and personally, I’m willing to wait for a day after the pirate sites for better scans with better translations from an official source.

One of the big advantages of MangaPlus is that it also gives the world access to super-new, internet-only SJ manga--the kind of stuff that doesn’t get translated officially until later in its run and sometimes never even gets popular outside of Japan at all. Some of it...frankly isn’t good enough to sell very well in print and may well get cancelled. But other things are worth sharing and trying to hype up with other English speakers! So, having roamed the app a bit, here are my recommendations so far: 

Spy x Family

Spy x Family is exactly what it says on the tin—a masterful combination of the spy fiction genre with found family tropes—and yet so much more. Tatsuya Endo’s manga about a spy and a contract killer agreeing to get fake-married and co-parent a psychic child has a premise bursting with potential, and it delivers. It’s listed as an action/comedy, and so far it’s delivered on both counts, balancing a deliciously absurd premise with well-rendered fight scenes. The characters are extremely likable, the dialogue is hilarious, and the comedy is seasoned with a few excellent, well-rendered moments of drama. The art is pretty excellent too—there’s been one or two panels with minor issues, but the facial expressions and use of shading more than make up for them. Really, the problem with this manga is that it’s really hard to express how wonderful it is without spoiling nearly all the good bits. So just trust me, ok? This thing deserves years of serialization, a U.S. print release, and an anime, at the very least.

Heart Gear

This is the newest offering from Takaki Tsuyoshi (known for Black Torch, a very excellent but very cancelled shounen action series that was seriously popular in some circles). Heart Gear is post-apocalyptic sci-fi about a girl who lives surrounded by droids, some friendly and some literally out of control. Takaki’s art is always beautiful, even if the girls really don’t need to be sexualized like they are, but the plot is still taking shape. The characters are endearing, if perhaps not as developed as they could be. I will say that I look forward to seeing Ru get angry or frustrated at some point. Mostly, I’m still here because there’s been seriously interesting hints of worldbuilding regarding the nature of droid consciousness.  Regardless, it’s worth checking out for the post-apocalyptic landscapes and intricate robots rendered in delicate, sketchy ink.

The Sign of Abyss

Drawn by Takamura Maya, this manga is set in an intricate fantasy world. The main character, a prince whose magic destroyed an entire city when he was a child, spends his days researching a way to restore the city, until he finds his life disrupted by a magic-user with rare abilities who broke into his house. The worldbuilding is fantastic, the series just keeps throwing ethical questions at you, and the magic system is splendidly inventive. The art is reminiscent of classic shoujo manga—the clean yet flowing lines  (and the soft inking on color pages) really made me think of Takemiya Keiko, but the eyes and faces have a lot in common with other artists influenced by the Year 24 Group/Magnificent Forty-Niners who were working later on, even into the early 90s. It does unfortunately take some of its cues on attitudes toward gender from manga of those eras, defaulting to the shoujo trope of “princely” women rather than actually dealing with questions about gender identity. Still, it’s gorgeous, the plot is engaging, and the characters are extremely likable. 

Two extra reasons to like this series: the main female character’s name is Meme (pronounced Meh-meh, but still), and the artist has an easy-to-find pixiv frull of bonus sketches.

Bonus: Dr. Stone

This is a bonus because it’s not available in full on MangaPlus—you’ve gotta buy the Shounen Jump app if you want to read something other than the first 3 chapters and the 3 most recent chapters. If you don’t want to or can’t, that’s fine, the anime’s coming out soon. If you’d like to board the hype train early, this is your invitation, because I’m 80% sure that after the first few episodes of the anime, Tumblr will be flooded in reaction gifs of the main character. Dr. Stone is another post-apocalyptic series, written by Inagaki Riichiro and drawn by Boichi (best known in the West for Sun-Ken Rock). What sets it apart is that it’s basically about one man’s quest to rebuild society from scratch by convincing everyone around him (and the reader) that science is basically a bunch of elaborate, stacked fetchquests interspersed with occasional skill-grinding. The fun part is that it works. To, like, a ridiculous degree. It’s like reading the comic version of MacGyver but Senkuu is much weirder and proud of that fact. At the same time, though, there’s a nice central conflict between him and a character who’s got very specific ideas about who should and shouldn’t get to survive the apocalypse. In the end, the fact that Senkuu’s eccentricity is founded on an honest love of discovery and a firm belief that science is meant to help people is what carries the narrative. The art is lovely, though frankly Boichi didn’t have to draw the women like that and he must know it. I will warn you that it takes a few chapters to find its footing, but if you can get through those chapters, you won’t regret reading it.

[tigerlover16-uk]

So, um, you doing alright? I'm sad about Super ending too

Eh, I’ll live.

I mean, I’m upset, and I’m concerned about the possibility, but I’ve calmed down a bit.

Again though, I don’t think the show is actually going to end. Super is just too profitable for Toei to want to give up at this point, and I feel like it‘s mostly going off the air for business and practical reasons

The Kitaro series obviously had to happen, as part of that franchise‘s big anniversary celebration, and it needed the slot that Super’s in to air because of traditional reasons. And it doesn’t seem like there’s a good spot to air Super at this particular moment. 

Plus, Toei have another Dragon Ball movie coming up, so a lot of the production staff will have to go work on that (The ones that don’t will move onto other projects for the time being. I’m pretty sure I heard that either one of the animators or writers was working on the next Precure show now).

So with all that in mind, it’s probably best for Dragon Ball on tv to take a quick break, since while the show’s production (Or at least the production values) have improved, it’s still hectic and not as stable as it should have been from the start. Having to keep up work on the show at the same time as a new movie, along with all of Toei’s other projects, and it’s probably a smart idea to give the show a break. Don’t want to risk getting another Resurrection F arc, now do we?

it’s pretty clear from all of those factors that the show’s not ending because Toei want to end it with the current saga. It was just a matter of convenience. I feel confident in believing that after the movie is finished and released, they’ll start production on either a new arc of Super, or a new Dragon Ball show continuing on from it. It’s not like shonen anime never take breaks. Fairy Tail has been off the air for nearly two years now, but it’ll come back eventually to adapt the final arcs of the manga. And it had a movie released last year in the meantime.

Sure, Fugi tv says they have no plans on airing a new series, but that’s understandable considering Super hasn’t even ended yet and the show probably won’t return, or a new one won’t be put into production, until next year at the earliest. Of course they wouldn’t know that yet. Nothing to panic about. If a continuation does happen, we’ll probably hear about it later in the year, close to the movie’s release. They’re going to be hush hush about it for now though, Toyotaro says he’s not allowed to comment on the show’s end for example.

And I really don’t think they’ll just end it here. I mean, just going off of merchandise sales, do you want to know how much the Dragon Ball brand made in 2017?

https://twitter.com/KenXyro/status/954308162580111361

60 billion yen. Up from 15 billion in 2014, and 20 billion more than the projected 40 billion.

I’m not good at math, so I can’t tell you how much that is in either dollars or pounds, but I can still confirm that’s a freaking lot of money. Not to mention, the show is an international success, does well in it’s tv ratings in Japan and is viewed all over the world. The Goku vs Jiren special (And to a lesser extent, the latest episode) got so much traffic to Crunchyroll that it caused it to crash. Whatever a number of fans may think of it, the show is popular and a huge financial success for Toei.

And they really need that, considering One Piece is apparently in decline lately, from everything to manga sales, ratings and most importantly merchandise. Not to mention Sailor Moon Crystal didn’t exactly go over well, even if it did push some merchandise.

Toei are unlikely to actively stop producing any new ongoing Dragon Ball series for the foreseeable future. Why would they. According to some members of staff, Toei have wanted to make a new Dragon Ball show since not long after GT ended. Kai was partly made because Toei couldn’t convince Toriyama to sign off on a new anime at the time (Or at least contribute to it I’m guessing, they can actually make new Dragon Ball stuff regardless of what he wants).

Considering they’ve just recently gotten Toriyama on board with coming up with new Dragon Ball story ideas, and the non-stop success Super has brought them financially, do you really think Toei are going to just call it quits with the Universe Survival saga and go back to making movies and specials every few years? 

Sooner or later the momentum Super brought the Dragon ball brand would die down, which would hurt their bottom line, and they don’t want that. They recently set up something called the Dragon Ball room to keep coming up with ideas for stuff that’ll keep Dragon Ball as a franchise relevant and produce new creative projects, so that’s a sign that Toei are committed to keep on making new Dragon Ball stories in various capacities.

Having Dragon Ball go off the air for a while can also be good for another reason. When they eventually do announce a continuation, especially coming off the heels of the movie (Which I’m sure they’re hoping will be a big success), that’ll generate hype again for new Dragon Ball, which’ll hopefully mean strong ratings early on in that run.

I mean… say what you want about Super from a narrative and critical standpoint, but speaking strictly from a financial standpoint, Toei would have to be mad to not want to capitalize on the brand further by keeping it going next year, or at least putting a new Dragon Ball show out in the next few years. So even if Super itself does end in March, I can’t feel too worried about Dragon Ball “Going away” as far as ongoing anime shows are concerned.

And you know what… maybe it will. Maybe Toei actually will have Super end in March and we won’t see a continuation anytime soon,,, but we will get a new Dragon Ball show. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that Dragon Ball will always have new shows coming out every once in a while is inevitable.

It’s a big franchise, pretty much Japan’s answer to Star Wars. No matter how much like it seems the ongoing story of it might be over, Toei will eventually come out with new shows for it. That’s just how the world of entertainment works. Super’s very existence is proof that this will be a reality.

Which… I get why a lot of people might find that frustrating, since Dragon Ball wrapped up perfectly well with the manga, but… You can’t tell me that if you were Toei and Shueisha and you really needed the money, you wouldn’t try and do the same thing after a while.

If we don’t get a new Dragon Ball series or at least an announcement for one next year or the year after, then it’ll happen within the next decade at least. I’d be annoyed if we had to wait a whole decade for a new Dragon Ball series of course, tried that once and didn’t like it. But, as painful as the wait would be… I’ll survive (At least I hope I will. Never know what could happen in ten years, you know).

Even if you think this is the legit end for Super, go ahead and tell me I’m wrong and that another continuation (Or, heck, a reboot or something maybe) won’t happen in the relatively near future with all that in consideration.

To sum it up, I’m just going to enjoy the rest of Super while I can, buy FighterZ when it comes out, look forward to the movie when it comes out and eventually gets a dub, and cross my fingers that we’ll get an announcement relatively soon of where things are going for the franchise. Hopefully all this means next year we’ll get a new series going past End of Z, that’s all I’ve wanted since Super was announced.

[animesavior]

“Asta, it's true that you aren't going to become the wizard king, not ever. That's because I am going to be the Wizard King. You're wrong about Asta, Revchi, very wrong. Asta's no loser, he's my rival! “

-          Yuno, Black Clover (Ep. 01)

The Toonami Trending Rundown for December 2-3, 2017. Asta’s quest to become the Magic Emperor begins as one of the rising stars in the shonen anime and manga scene in Black Clover makes its way to the better cartoon show. Meanwhile, Mr. Satan attempts to get Buu to stop his mass-murder-for-fun ways, and Gon, Killua, and Biscuit work on getting the final card to completing Greed Island among many others.

On Twitter, every show would successfully trend in the US during their respective East Coast airings including Black Clover as it began its run on a good note, while Hunter x Hunter and Cowboy Bebop also trended during their West Coast airings. On tumblr, Toonami would trend as with Dragon Ball Super, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (including JJBA) and Hunter x Hunter.

Unfortunately due to a very busy night in the TV scene combined with the transition of Dragon Ball Super moving to 10:30pm (the prime-time DBS hour at 8pm was abolished to make way for the expansion) the show wouldn’t make it to Nielsen Social’s top 5 this week.

This week’s feature was a game review of Gundam Versus for the PS4. It received a 7.5 out of 10 score.

Some of the notable news of the week include:

For those wondering what Toonami will be doing for the holiday season, the block will once again be doing encore marathons during the Christmas and New Years weekends, with episodes 1-11 of Cowboy Bebop airing on December 23, followed by episodes 32-43 of Dragon Ball Super on December 30. A good time to catch up with all of your favorite shows for those falling behind.

And for those looking for other ways to catch up on or re-watch Dragon Ball Super, the first 39 episodes are available to view on FunimationNow, with plans to upload additional episodes on the service in 13 episode batches, each to launch two weeks after the last episode of the batch airs on Toonami. This goes along with other options including Adult Swim’s on-demand and streaming services as well as the Funimation produced DVDs and Blu-Rays. Of course, premieres will continue to be on the better cartoon show weekly (holidays aside) as always.

Meanwhile, the acclaim keeps on coming for Samurai Jack, as the season finale has received several nominations for the Annie Awards, including Best General Audience Animated Television/Broadcast Production, Outstanding Achievement for Character Design in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production, Outstanding Achievement for Production Design in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production, and Outstanding Achievement for Editorial in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production. The ceremonies will take place on February 3rd and we wish Jack the best of luck.

Toonami has had quite a history of helping many top Shonen shows reach prominence and with Black Clover now on the better cartoon show, there are high hopes for Black Clover to reach similar prominence as well. Considered to be a “spiritual successor” to Naruto by some (or a mix of Harry Potter and Naruto), Asta and Yuno’s quest to the top of the wizard world has had many intrigued, as the Black Clover franchise is growing to become one of Shonen Jump’s newest hits, with over 4.8 million manga copies in print, and since the anime premiered in Japan back in October, the series has seen respectable ratings and streaming numbers on Crunchyroll and FunimationNow, all culminating in Toonami picking up the show for TV broadcast. Not everyone is pleased however, with some critics have complained about the show’s story and tropes being too formulaic and cliched to other hit Shonen Jump shows, among other things, some going as far as calling it one of the worst manga series to be released in 2016.

Yet despite this, Black Clover against all odds, found its way to the better cartoon show, beating out favorites such as My Hero Academia, Mob Psycho 100, and the Blue Exorcist Kyoto Saga to do so. Of course, the last part isn’t exactly true, contrary to semi-popular opinion, Black Clover isn’t here simply because Toonami chose it over the other three, and in a perfect world, those three shows would be airing alongside each other with Black Clover in the block.

Despite that the above mentioned shows were well requested and Toonami has looked into them, internal politics with the distributors and competition can sometimes hurt or stop a show’s chances of making it to the better cartoon show, including legal rights hitting a snag that forbid a TV broadcast (ex. Macross, Megas XLR, IGPX before 2013), negotiations between the distributors fail (ex. when JoJo’s was with Warner Bros, they didn’t negotiate with Toonami unless they paid a fortune for TV rights), or in the case of the above three shows, competitors (ie. Hulu or Netflix) outbidding Toonami for exclusive premiere rights. When asked regarding My Hero Academia’s possibilities a few months ago, Jason DeMarco responded: “I don't know if we'll NEVER get it, but we can't get it right now. A good rule of thumb: if something premieres on Netflix, you probably won't see it on TV any time soon....”. There might be more to it than these reasons, but regardless, as with the situations with Sailor Moon Crystal and previously InuYasha The Final Act and Blue Exorcist season 1, Toonami will have to wait perhaps several years for those deals to expire to get its turn at airing those shows, assuming if there’s still interest by then. With Toonami’s success in helping to rejuvenate the anime industry, other companies have wanted their slice of the anime pie, something we also saw during the block’s previous golden age. It stinks, but as the old saying goes, you can’t win em all.

Meanwhile, while we’re not privy to knowing how Toonami negotiates with the anime industry for shows, with Black Clover’s creators and the Toonami crew seeing the show’s potential and growing fanbase, it’s safe to say that having the show air on Toonami with its prestige was a big priority for them and negotiations turned out to be successful. Say what you want about Shueisha and FUNimation trying to push the show to success, but to use a sports term, they wanted it more and got it done when it mattered most, while you could say My Hero Academia came up short. Remember, if you really want to see a show make it to Toonami, let them and the appropriate distributors know you want to see it there at their request outlets (ex. Toonami’s Facebook and Tumblr message boxes, among other places). Sometimes things may not work out, but with enough demand, at least you’re showing that they should really consider it. It sure worked for Black Clover and every show that has aired here.

Time will tell how Black Clover pans out, but all I can say is if you’re liking what you’re seeing, continue to enjoy this show, perhaps check out the manga as well, and look forward to its future potential. If not, all I can say is to vote with your eyeballs and stop watching and giving it publicity. There’s a reason why Sword Art Online succeeded and likely will return despite vocal minority discontent while One Piece ultimately left Toonami despite all the love it has gotten. If a Season 2 of Black Clover ultimately does happen with a Simuldub on Toonami in the future, it will be because of the support of the fans. If not, the critics will be proven right and we'll move on to the next big thing. Black Clover is a show with plenty of potential ahead, and whether it could become the next Naruto and forms its own legacy or not during these 51 weeks and perhaps beyond, the viewers will be the ones who get to decide that.

Tune in tonight as Hunter x Hunter begins the Chimera Ant arc, among other great moments. Until then, stay gold as always.

Legend: The shows listed are ordered based on their appearance on the schedule. Show trends are listed in bold. The number next to the listed trend represents the highest it trended on the list (not counting the promoted trend), judging only by the images placed in the rundown. For the Twitter tweet counts, the listed number of tweets are also sorely based on the highest number shown based on the images on the rundown.

United States Trends:

Toonami/#Toonami [#5]

#DragonBallSuper [#7]

#DBZKai [#8]

#BlackClover [#4]

#JoJosBizarreAdventure [#5]

#GundamIBO [#5]

#HunterXHunter (Also during the West Coast airing) [#5]

#LupinThe3rd [#5]

#Shippuden [#5]

#OutlawStar [#6]

#CowboyBebop (Also during the West Coast airing) [#5]

#GhostInTheShell [#8]

Tweet Counts:

Toonami [7,882 tweets]

#Toonami [4,342 tweets]

#DragonBallSuper [6,839 tweets]

#DBZKai [1,317 tweets]

#BlackClover [3,098 tweets]

#GundamIBO [1,221 tweets]

#HunterXHunter [3,609 tweets]

#LupinThe3rd [1,023 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

#toonami

#dragon ball super

#jojos bizarre adventure

#jjba

#hunter x hunter

Notes and Other Statistics:

#HunterXHunter: @WhoTrendedIT reported that @tsunderica started the trend in the US.

#CowboyBebop: @WhoTrendedIT reported that @MaryEMcGlynn started the trend in the US.

Special thanks to @coreymbarnes, @jmb70056, and others I forgot to mention for spotting some of the trends on this list.

Click here to see our moments section featuring some of the notable tweets of the night.

Gundam is life. Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.

[kuriquinn]

Miso Soup Everyday

Summary: This is supposed to be a certainty – the one sure thing in his entire life. Yet he can't fight the same mounting apprehension he experiences when crossing into a dimension he's never visited before.

Disclaimer: This story utilises characters, situations and premises that are copyright Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, Shonen Jump and Viz media. No infringement on their respective copyrights pertaining to episodes, novelisations, comics or short stories is intended by KuriQuinn in any way, shape or form. This fan-oriented story is written solely for the author’s own amusement and the entertainment of the fandom. It is not for profit. Any resemblance to real organisations, institutions, products or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All plot and Original Characters except for those introduced in the canon books, manga, video games, novelisations and anime, are the sole creation of KuriQuinn. (© KuriQuinn 2016—)

Warning: Spoilers for everything in Naruto (up to Chapter 700).

Canon-Compliance: This work is loosely part of the Legacy of Fire series. It is and is not canon-compliant (for reasons that will be made clearer in my as yet unnamed and unwritten Sakura/Sasuke Blank Period Pre Pregnancy Get Together travel fic. Yes, it’s kind of complicated.

Beta Reader: Sakura’s Unicorn

Honestly, it’s a bit of a role reversal.

When they were children, Sasuke was the aloof one—cool and confident, perpetually at ease in his role as the storied prodigy of Konoha. He was the genius of Team Seven, overshadowing Sakura’s presence as if she was only an afterthought. Naruto and he had their rivalry between them, so it was all too easy to consider Sakura as a barely requisite third wheel. Insecure and needy, she trailed after him like a puppy.  

That’s no longer true.

These days, it’s Sakura (alongside Naruto) who is the beacon of hope in the community, the hero little children crowd excitedly around when she walks through the streets. Sasuke is the one people don’t think of—or rather, prefer not to think of. He’s the third wheel of the Sannin’s heirs, whose reputation is maintained only by his connection to the other two. He might have helped to save the planet, but it’s Sakura’s name that opens doors.

And if that doesn’t work, her fist splinters them.

Since returning to Konoha, Sasuke has noticed the whispers and stares that follow them when he and Sakura go anywhere together. Initially, he thought the behaviour was directed at him—judgement for his past deeds and the dark legacy that will hound him until he dies. Except, the general tone of the whispers is usually deferential. He knows from years of wandering that people are more likely to avert their eyes than risk his attention. Thus, it’s Sakura to whom they look—she holds the admiration of every inhabitant of the growing village.

What’s surprising about it, though, is how much he doesn’t mind. As a child, the idea of being second to anyone was unacceptable, especially compared to his teammates: Naruto, because he was the village screw-up, and Sakura because she was just support—an admirer to cheer on his successes and, in the early days of their team, to highlight just how far Naruto was beneath their collective skill level.

It’s all different now.

Sakura is the one who stayed in Konoha, working hard to earn the respect and awe of the village. These days she walks confidently in the sun while Sasuke is content to watch her from the shadows.

It’s ironic, actually. In three short years, a civilian-born girl with no bloodline talent to speak of achieved more widespread respect than the Uchiha clan did in three generations.

He wonders what his parents would have made of Sakura. He likes to think they would have approved.

Father would have been terse and silent, but even he wouldn’t be able to deny her incredible talent. Mother would warm to her instantly because her temperament was rather similar. And his brother…

Sasuke can’t help a rueful, bitter smile at this. Itachi would have probably figured out Sasuke’s feelings for her before Sasuke himself did.

He’s aware enough of his shortcomings these days that the admission comes easily. He understands that he’s cared for Sakura since their Academy days—lack of natural talent aside, she intrigued him, even if he didn’t show it. Humans are visual creatures, and her hair alone meant he couldn’t pretend she didn’t exist the way he could with other kids. On top of that, she was intelligent enough to beat him on every written test, though she never sought to compete with him.

This, too, is ironic. Perhaps if she’d approached him as a potential rival, he would have seen her value earlier on.

Instead, his childhood memories of Sakura are of a pretty and shallow (yet kind) girl trailing behind him. Even then, she had a remarkable tenacity and dedication, bringing him Valentine’s Day gifts every year and patiently enduring his constant rebuffs. Sasuke didn’t even realise until much later—until that last fight with Naruto—that with every passing year, another chunk of his heart fell into her waiting palm.

Knowing that should make his plans today easier, but it doesn’t.

He’s had nightmares since the end of the war—dreams which take up the space in his head where revenge was once so prominent. Most often, they are of that day long ago when he almost snuffed out her light. Sometimes, Sasuke still feels the phantom heat of the Chidori in his palm, can still see her back bared to him as he moves closer.

He knows now that if he’d landed that blow, he would not have survived the war.

As mad with grief and rage as he was, having Sakura’s blood on his hands would have shattered his already damaged psyche beyond repair. The loss of Itachi coupled with the truths about his brother’s life had thrown him off the deep end; responsibility for Sakura’s death would have kept him there.

He doubts she realises this, even though they’ve spent more time together since his return—partaking in quiet dinners or long walks when her schedule allows for it. There’s even the rare sparring match that leaves him bruised but proud. She doesn’t ask him why he’s around so often or allude in any way to how she feels for him.

If she still feels for him.

She as good as told him in her letters that she was tired of waiting. Likely, it’s too late for anything, regardless of his belated hopes. And yet, despite this, Sasuke has been vacillating about the matter since he came back to Konoha. Until today.

At least he hopes.

It’s become habit to pass by the clinic to pick Sakura up after work. She falls into step with him with more ease than she ever did when they were young. Sometimes, they meander through the town while she chats about her day. Sometimes, they find an out-of-the-way restaurant to get a bite to eat. Sometimes, when she’s exhausted, he simply walks her home.  

Today, though, he leads them along the river toward the lake. They’ve walked this way before, but he’s never led her down the embankment. She doesn’t ask where they’re going, which he takes as encouragement.

The dock where he spent so much time alone as a child looks almost exactly as it did then. The wood is slightly warped, causing it to tilt downward toward the lake a little, but it’s still sturdy. There are burn marks on the edges from lessons long ago. He stares at them for a beat, allowing memories to take him out of the present for a few moments.

Beside him, Sakura is still as well, but it’s a comfortable quiet. Now that they’re older, she’s more intuitive about his reticence. As children, she would talk his ear off as if terminally afraid of a drawn-out silence, filling it by any means. Sometimes, he appreciated this because it saved him the effort of having to maintain a conversation (especially when they were around other people).

Most of the time, though, he just wanted her to leave him to brood in peace.

These days, whether it’s because of her own wartime experiences or her work with those who have suffered its effects, she knows exactly when to simply linger quietly. And, as usual, he appreciates her waiting for him to open the conversation. It takes a little more effort today to find a way to start.

“This where I learned to perform Katon,” he tells her finally, his voice even, despite the way his stomach spasms with nerves.

“Oh?” she inquires, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees her look up at him, surprise and curiosity flickering across her features. He seldom, if ever, talks about the past—even more rarely does he speak of the time before they were genin.

Sasuke nods, staring out across the calm waters. “My father taught me. It was the only thing he was able to show me before he…died.”  

Even so many years later, the pain is still as raw as it was the day of the massacre. The blinding rage is gone now, however. When he notices small, strong fingers tentatively wrap around his right hand and give a brief, reassuring squeeze, his instinct is to return the gesture, instead of pulling away.

“The technique was created by the Uchiha clan,” he goes on, sticking to facts because this is what he knows for sure. Facts are unchangeable, not hinging on chance and sentiment. “My family honed it over the years and, even though others have learned to master it, they could never achieve the exact effect that we could.”

He perceives her nod at this, but senses confusion as to why he’s bringing this up right now. She won’t ask, though, intuitively accepting that he has some purpose. Not for the first time does he think she trusts him far too much than he deserves—far more than he even trusts himself.

But today there is a purpose, and if he could ignore the nagging doubts at the back of his mind, he might be able to get to it. This is supposed to be a certainty—the one sure thing in his entire life. Yet, he can’t fight the same mounting apprehension he experiences when crossing into a dimension he’s never visited before.

“Would you like me to teach you?” he asks, inwardly cringing at how tentative he sounds, despite his efforts to be casual.

Luckily, Sakura is too caught off-guard to notice. “You’ve never asked me that before.”

“I never recognised the opportunity,” he admits. Too blinded by rage and revenge, it never occurred to him as a kid that the teammates he considered dead weight might improve faster if he helped them.

Sakura knows this too and doesn’t argue the point. Instead, she says, “I’m not a fire type, though.”

“That shouldn’t stop the apprentice of the Fifth Hokage.”

Sakura scoffs. “That sounds like a challenge.”

“Hn.”

“All right! You’ve got it!” Sakura declares, making a show of rolling up her sleeves and facing the lake. “Stand back and watch me! Shannaro!” She flexes her fingers, preparing to form the requisite hand seals, and then glances back, a ghost of doubt on her face. “Um…any pointers?”

Sasuke’s mouth twitches at this.

He gives her a demonstration and the same advice his father offered.  

She masters the technique faster than he did. Not on the first try, like Itachi, but within hours. He puts that down to her excellent chakra control and the fact that, as a jōnin, learning to master new techniques quickly is a prerequisite. There’s a huge difference between her abilities and those of a seven-year-old with self-esteem issues.

Thanks to her instant healing, there’s no obvious signs of damage—her cheeks aren’t burned, and her lips haven’t chapped from the flame. But the tips of her hair are singed a little and her skin is rosy from the heat.

After expelling the last fireball, Sakura coughs, smoke wafting briefly from mouth and nostrils, but when it dissipates, her eyes are dancing.

“How’s that?” she challenges, hands on her hips and chin jutted out.

Sasuke smirks. “As expected.”

“Oh, come on! That was amazing and you know it! Mine might even be better than yours!”

“Tch.”

She laughs at that.

“I think I burnt my tongue. My taste buds aren’t going to work properly for a week!” Her face becomes inquisitive. “What’s the occasion, though? Or did you really just want to avoid another gourmet dinner at Ichiraku with Naruto?”

As Sasuke has come to expect from her, Sakura provides him with an out. He’s not entirely sure how long she’s been doing that, or even if it’s intentional, but he appreciates it all the same. Today, however, he will not make use of it.

“That’s an extra benefit,” he allows, earning an amused, somewhat conspiratorial grin. He pauses, momentarily at loss of how to say what he needs to say. Eyes trained on the surface of the lake, he steels himself and continues.  “This technique…in my family, it’s a rite of passage.”

He lets that sink in.

“Oh, yeah. I think you mentioned that once,” she says thoughtfully. “Or Kakashi-sensei said it. It’s like a coming-of-age tradition, right?”

“Aa,” he affirms and, trying to lace his words with meaning, confides, “It’s only passed on by close family members.”

“Right. That’s why your father taught you. I think that’s a nice tradition.”

Sasuke winces inwardly because she clearly doesn’t understand what he’s trying to say. It’s not a failing on her part, but his own inability to articulate the point properly. The words are there, but for some reason, they die somewhere between throat and lips. Demons and malevolent gods he can take, but this five-foot-four woman with pink hair makes Sasuke nervous. And it’s not because she can crush his skull with her little finger, either.

“Until one can perform the technique properly, one cannot truly claim the name Uchiha,” he explains, hoping the inflexion of the words conveys his intended meaning.   

But Sakura still doesn’t get it.

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on a child,” she says lightly. She’s probably imagining him struggling to learn the technique, terrified of failure. She wouldn’t be wrong, either.

The knots in Sasuke’s stomach get worse and, if she doesn’t realise soon, he’ll have to spell it out for her. He’s half-angry about that because she’s supposed to be smarter. She should intuit what he’s trying to say and save him from making an utter fool of himself.

“Not only a child,” he corrects, again elaborately casual. “You performed it perfectly.”

Please…just…listen to what I’m trying to say.

There’s a heavy pause, and then Sakura’s breath catches in her throat. The silence between them suddenly isn’t so companionable now, but fraught with a tension like the entire world is holding its breath. Sasuke doesn’t look directly at her as she parses his words, using that blinding intellect of hers to understand what he’s trying to ask. Still, he glimpses her face from the corner of his eye and this is how he watches her expression blossom with understanding.

Success.

He turns to her.

“I have no right to ask anything of you,” he says plainly. “Not after everything.”

“Sasuke—”

“Sakura, let me…” he trails off, jaw working and his own voice catching as the words get lost again, but damn it, he has to get this out! “I don’t know if I can be what you want, what you’ve hoped for. Or if I can give you everything that you deserve. And it’s possible I’ve waited too long.” He swallows. “But when I think of family—even at my lowest point, where I’d given up on the idea—you were the only one I could ever see myself with. The one that I…”

Again, words fail him, and Sasuke wants to swear in frustration. He needs her to know because maybe the faster he gets it out, the better the odds will be. Sakura deserves so much better—always has—and could have anyone else. She should have anyone else, but he’s still hoping that she won’t want anyone else.

“Say it.”

Sasuke is rather jarringly brought out of his rambling, insecure thoughts by a cracking whisper.

Sakura stares up at him, tears welling in her eyes. Why is it him who always makes her cry? He expected her to be flustered or awkward, but instead, she looks the same as she does when bracing for a physical blow.

This confuses him. “What?”

“I need you to say it,” she tells him, barely above a whisper. “Just once. Say it and mean it.” Her fists clench. “I’ll never ask to hear it again, if that’s what you want. But before I can say yes—to the future, to trying, to…to all of it—you have to say it.” She takes a shuddering breath. “If you can’t, then I…I…”

She trails off as if the idea is too hard for her to even enunciate, too painful to consider—for either of them.

Sasuke has never been good with words. What he feels for Sakura, he doesn’t want to—can’t, really—put into words. There is no collection of syllables or sounds that are accurate enough to describe the girl who gave him her heart when they were children. The woman who waited for him for years, who forgave him for trying to kill her, their best friend, and their entire village. He’s wandered the world, looking for redemption, and it’s only since returning here that he’s realised he had it the whole time.

He wants to tell her all of that, but he doesn’t think she’ll understand. Not now, not yet—not while they’re still getting used to being around one another. Maybe after a lifetime, if she’ll give him that, it will come easier—his words and her ability to trust in him.

But for now, she wants something so simple, something almost infantile, as if a set phrase is a guarantee, a safety net, or a reward of some kind. He knows this, but struggles to give it to her, because it’s so insufficient. And everything about him to date, when it relates to her, has been insufficient.

If he does this wrong, she’ll turn away—it’s why she’s giving him this ultimatum in the first place. In their time apart, she’s developed into a strong, independent individual with unapologetic self-respect and unmalleable resolve. She knows what his hopes are, the unspoken wish behind one of his ultimate goals. But Sakura won’t become the vehicle for his happiness unless she’s sure she’ll benefit from it as well. It’s only fair and Sasuke admires her even more for it, but right now, it’s making him want to turn tail and run.

“Sakura…” He really, really wishes he was better at this.

Just do it already, you ass.

And why isn’t it surprising that, in this moment where the rest of his life might change for better or worse, Sasuke can clearly hear the voice of his idiot best friend telling him what to do? It almost makes him want to check to make sure the halfwit isn’t lurking somewhere nearby.

Regardless of its source, the advice is right. No more good can come of waiting.

Sasuke bends down so that his forehead presses against Sakura’s, bringing them eye to eye. She tenses up and her pale cheeks flush with colour, her lips parting in surprise. If this position prevents Sakura from seeing the colour rising on his own face or noticing that his hand is shaking as it gently takes hers, all the better.

“I don’t know what the future holds,” he says in a low voice, “but I want to spend it with you.”

Her lower lip trembles at this. “Because…because you love me?” Sakura prompts, the question a whisper but with a mettle to it. It’s a firm reminder that she will not let him off easy in this moment.

Sasuke exhales through his nose in defeat, eyes closing in affectionate resignation. “Because I love you.”

When he opens his eyes, Sakura’s are (if possible) wider than he’s ever seen. The utter shock etched into every other feature is simultaneously amusing and worrisome. He wonders dimly if, against all odds, this is finally what breaks her.  

Putting some distance between their faces, he gently taps two fingers beneath the rhombus-shaped seal on her forehead—partially to make sure she’s still cognizant, but also to drive the message home. Sakura has never completely understood the gesture before in the handful of instances he’s demonstrated it, but now understanding flickers into place—that this is not just today, and not only because she asked him, but that he’s wanted this for so much longer.

Glassy green eyes are now overflowing with tears, the droplets winding down the curves of her cheeks and quivering jaw. Mild panic sets in—why is she upset? Shouldn’t she be happy?

“Sakura, why are you cry—mmph!”

Fingers fist in his shirt and a pair of soft lips are planted very firmly against his own.

Sasuke stands frozen for several seconds. Dimly, he supposes he should’ve expected this, because isn’t this what’s meant to happen when two people acknowledge feelings for one another? Essentially, he asked Sakura to spend the rest of her life with him, so it shouldn’t come as a shock that there would be a physical confirmation of this. Only, he didn’t quite expect it to happen so fast. Well, fast, he thinks, is relative. They have been building up to this since childhood, but he’s still not sure—

“You’re supposed to kiss me back,” Sakura mumbles against his mouth. If he wasn’t blushing before, the embarrassment hits fully now.

Still, the permission takes at least some of his discomfiture away.

Slow and tentative, Sasuke returns the kiss. It’s clumsy and uncertain because he’s never done this before, but she makes a small, approving noise at the back of her throat and he guesses he’s doing something right. Sakura tastes like smoke from the Katon and something sweet he doesn’t have a name for. He suspects he could spend the rest of his life trying to figure it out without success, an idea doesn’t bother him at all.

She fits her mouth over his, softly pulling his bottom lip between hers, and Sasuke’s senses fade out. Something like relief passes over him, as if a weight has been pulled from his very soul. The last, tightly coiled vestiges of doubt and anxiety which have gathered in him for years are now gone, and the only thing in the world is her. That, in itself, is mildly terrifying, but in a good way.

Achingly slowly, Sakura pulls away from him, reaching up to brush his hair away from his left eye. Her fingers stay in place, keeping the strands from falling back while her thumb traces a gentle arc from eyebrow to temple. He leans into the touch and she grins at him.

“Well?” she prompts. “What do you think?”

“…Hm?” It should concern Sasuke that his brain takes a second or two to catch up.

“Better than Naruto, right?” she wants to know.

The post-kiss haze vanishes. Sasuke sputters out a wordless response because that’s not how these things are supposed to go. His people skills might be rusty, but he’s pretty sure it’s far from normal to remind the man who just confessed his feelings for you about his (very unwilling) first (and second) kiss with their mutual best friend.

Sakura is laughing, at him or at the situation, he doesn’t know. He should be annoyed about this—and if she ever tells anyone about it, he will be—but the tears in her eyes are from mirth, not pain or sadness and, for once, he doesn’t regret putting them there.

“Yes, by the way,” she tells him happily, leaning into his chest. “Yes to all of it.”

終わり

Thanks for reading my story, and I hope you enjoy it! Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome! If you want to support my writing, I accept ko-fi donations and have started posting original fiction on my patreon account, Kuriworlds I encourage you to check it out!

栗 

[sasusakufestival]

The 'Other' Talk

Summary: “How are you not upset about this?!” / “I’m upset, I just happen to be a little more informed and open-minded on the subject than someone whose traditional values harken back to the Dark Ages!” In which Sakura and Sasuke disagree about an unexpected development. [SasuSaku Festival 2017 – Day 14 – Prompt: “Domestic Disagreement”]

Disclaimer: This story utilizes characters, situations and premises that are copyright Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, Shonen Jump and Viz Media. No infringement on their respective copyrights pertaining to episodes, novelizations, comics or short stories is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan oriented story is written solely for the author’s own amusement and the entertainment of the readers. It is not for profit. Any resemblance to real organizations, institutions, products or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All fiction, plot and Original Characters with the exception of those introduced in the books, manga, video games, novelizations and anime, are the sole creation of KuriQuinn and using them without permission is considered rude, in bad-taste and will reflect seriously on your credibility as a writer. You will be smothered with a mattress if you are found plagriarising.

Warning: Another dialogue only fic. Because I’m tired.

Canon/Fanon Compliance: Could conceivably take place in any of my ‘verses. Feel free to interpret as you wish.

____________________

“Enough.”

“…”

“Sasuke, that’s enough.”

“…”

“No, don’t get up and walk away – sit.”

“…”

“Sasuke…they love each other. This is what people do when they love each other.”

“How?”

“‘How’? Do you really need me to paint you a diagram? I thought the whole in flagrante delicto was enough – ”

“No! Not how that! How could she do this to me?”

“She didn’t do this to you. Or me. In fact – and I sincerely hope – she probably wasn’t even thinking about either of us.”

“You are not helping.

“Would you like me to freak out? Sit in the dark like some overgrown bat, glaring at her door from the living room? Because if it will help, I can do that.”

“Sakura, for fuck’s sake, she is sixteen. She should not be…she shouldn’t even be thinking about…how is this an issue that we’re dealing with right now?”

“I would say ‘dealing with’ is putting it strongly.”

“Why are you not upset by this?”

“Did I ever say I wasn’t upset? Because trust me, I’m upset. I honestly didn’t think sex was going to be an issue for another year or two.”

“Another…another year?”

“Or two.”

“So you were expecting…?”

“Darling, not every teenager is going to wait for marriage like you and I did. And honestly, that was only because you wanted to wait. If circumstances had been different, I probably would have jumped you the minute you got back to Konoha.”

“That’s…it’s completely different.”

“It really isn’t.”

“She was raised to know better. Falling on her back for the first boy she –”

“You had better be really careful how you finish that sentence, Sasuke.”

“I should be careful? If I see the little bastard again –”

“You will be completely courteous to him.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Yes, you will. She chose him, she loves him, you will respect her choice.”

“She’s my daughter!”

“And it’s her body! She gets to make decisions about it and who she shares it with!”

“How are you not upset about this?!”

“I’m upset, I just happen to be a little more informed and open-minded on the subject than someone whose traditional values harken back to the Dark Ages!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means we’re not about to lock our daughter up in a tower somewhere until someone trades us two goats in order to marry her! It means we’re not going to check her bedsheets for stains or sneak through her cupboards to count condoms or check her phone to see if she’s sexting! It means we respect her privacy because she is almost an adult, because if we ever want her to come to us when there actually is a problem, we can’t alienate her over something that isn’t actually an issue.”

“But this is an issue!”

“No. It’s. Not.”

“Then I’d hate to see your definition of an issue.”

“Oh, I don’t know, a drug problem? Gambling debts? Accidentally killing someone? Those are problems. Sex is not a problem.”

“It is when it’s your teenaged daughter down on her knees and –”

“I do not need a reminder! Shannaro!”

“And here I thought you were all for it.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth! I didn’t say I was happy about this whole thing, I’m just trying to point out that there’s nothing wrong with having sex!”

“I never said there was!”

“Yes, as long as it’s married sex. Because clearly sex when it’s attached to a piece of paper makes it official sex, and that’s obviously so much more meaningful.”

“Your sarcasm isn’t amusing.”

“It’s not meant to be.”

“And are you saying waiting for marriage wasn’t meaningful for you?”

“What? No! Of course not! You know it was!”

“Then I don’t see why waiting can’t be an option for her.”

“Because everyone is different, Sasuke! You and I…you know we didn’t have a normal relationship. And when we finally did get married, when we were together for the first time…It was like coming home after the longest, most brutal journey ever. And it was beautiful and amazing and…and right. But that was our story. It worked for us, but I…I don’t…”

“You don’t want that for her.”

“Not until she’s old enough – not until she’s strong enough.”

“…”

“I don’t want her nursing a broken heart for ten years on the off chance she’ll be with her soulmate at the end of it. I want her to live. I want her to fall in love – I want her to fall out of love – I want her to do exactly what makes her happy – within reason. She still has to be smart and responsible, but Sasuke, she should at least have that chance. Because the minute she does find the person she is going to spend the rest of her life with? She’ll be closing herself off to so many other experiences.”

“…like you did.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It was implied.”

“There you go, putting words in my mouth again. Are you just trying to pick a fight now?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re already fighting.”

“Because you’re being so pig-headed!”

“At least I’m thinking about things from a responsible standpoint and not as someone trying to live vicariously through my teenaged daughter.”

“That is not what’s happening here – are you even listening?!”

“Yes, I’m listening!”

“Then what exactly are you still so angry about?!”

“I don’t know!”

“…”

“…”

“Well, I do.”

“…”

“She’s you’re little girl. Our little girl. You’ve got this image in your head of her eight years old, with scraped knees and missing teeth, and you don’t want to think of her in any way but that. This whole thing…it’s a new side of her, it’s a part of her life we can’t really be there for except as advisors. And if she ends up getting her heart broken…”

“I’ll kill him.”

“…we have to let that happen to. We have to let her live her life, Sasuke. We have to trust her.”

“…”

“And I do trust her. She’s known where babies come from since she was toddling around here herself. I’ve given her the STD speech practically every time she heads out of the house. She knows how to stand up for herself, and honestly, I pity whatever guy ever tries to push her into doing something she doesn’t want to. And right now, that’s all we can do, because even if we forbade her from seeing him, from having sex –”

“They’d do it anyway.”

“Exactly.”

“…”

“If it makes you feel better, I’m not to happy they were in our bedroom. We might have to burn that bed and get a new one.”

“Hm.”

“And we’re definitely going to have a discussion about appropriate places to fornicate.”

“…Please don’t use that word in connection with our daughter.”

“Heh. Alright.”

“…We should probably invite him.”

“He has a name, you know.”

“Not one he deserves to be called right now.”

“Fair enough.”

“I’m still not alright with this.”

“I know.”

“And if something goes wrong, I won’t hesitate to tell you “I told you so”.”

“If it ever comes to that, you get one.”

“Fine.”

“…”

“…”

“Do you think Naruto knows?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you want me to call him or should I?”

“I’ll go see him.”

“There is far, far too much sadistic glee in your voice right now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

__________________

終わり

I hope you enjoyed the story! As part of the SasuSakuFestival, please go to the ssfest page and vote, like and/or reblog, it would be majorly appreciated!

クリ

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (139/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[3 December, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Luffa had become the Legendary Super Saiyan at the age of nineteen, after being captured and tortured for months by merciless alien enemy. At the time, the transformation was a mixed blessing for her, giving her the power to take revenge upon her tormentors, but also changing her into something she neither knew nor understood. At first, Luffa feared her new ability, and even after she accepted it as a natural function of Saiyan biology, she worried about what might happen if she lost control of such immense power. For this reason, she resolved to never again transform into the Oozaru form, in case the combination of the two transformations might be more than her body could handle.

Unlike the Super Saiyan transformation, which was so rare that it had been nearly forgotten, any Saiyan could become an Oozaru. All they needed was the tail they were born with, and the light of a full moon. Somehow, sunlight reflected off a lunar surface had just the right wavelength to trigger a horrific change in a Saiyan's body, turning their humanoid forms into enormous, bloodthirsty apes. There were myths and folk tales, and even some genuine scientific research on the phenomenon, but all anyone knew for certain was that the transformation was real. The moonlight had to be above a certain intensity to work, but that seemed to be the only criteria. And so, whenever she went to a planet with a large enough moon, Luffa always took the precaution of checking the local calendar and wearing sunglasses when needed.

Over time, as Luffa grew accustomed to being the Legendary Super Saiyan, she mostly forgot about the Oozaru power. Many Saiyans did the same, even going so far as to deliberately cut off their own tails to avoid the inconvenience of an unwanted transformation. Weaker Saiyans couldn't even retain their identity in the giant ape form, so they didn't want the hassle of losing control of their actions without warning. For stronger Saiyans, the giant ape form had certain tactical advantages, except that it could only be achieved once in a lunar cycle. Come the dawn, the power would be lost. Most Saiyans considered it more trouble than it was worth. In Luffa's case, she had to deal with the additional concern that the extreme power increase might tear her body apart.

But now, on Planet Nagaoka, deep inside enemy territory, bereft of all allies, friends and family, and with nothing left to live for but a vendetta against her own species, Luffa didn't care about any of the drawbacks. She now stood as a Super Saiyan and an Oozaru at the same time, a form that looked like a 150-foot giant ape with glowing golden fur. Nagaoka's moon was full, and would sustain this new form for another ten hours before morning, when the moonlight would became diluted by the sunrise. But ten hours was more than enough time to tear the entire planet to pieces. And if the strain of it killed her before then, it wouldn't matter.

She roared and beat her chest for a moment, furious at her enemies, and grateful for the glorious violence she was about to unleash upon them.

"You can't do this!" Rehval protested. His true self was on the opposite side of the planet, but he had sent his proxy, an avatar made of earth and stone, to lead his followers into battle. The rock-Rehval was actually a little bigger than Luffa, but its slender form paled in comparison to her splendor.

"I just did," Luffa growled. Her voice was lower, louder, and more primal than before, but there was no mistaking her identity. Unlike lesser Saiyans, who couldn't control themselves in the giant ape form, Luffa was in full command of her faculties.

"But the power is unstable!" Rehval said. "I can sense it from here! I never expected you to actually try to-- No... No...!"

"Yes!" Luffa snarled. "You were the one who gave me the idea, Rehval! You and your constant gloating! Always going on about how you had tapped into the energy fields of this star system. You married your power with this planet, didn't you? Which means you need its moon to keep that arrangement in tact. Too bad. Otherwise, you could destroy the moon right now, and then I'd change back to normal!"

"I don't have to destroy the moon!" Rehval shouted. "Not when I can destroy your tail!"

"Oh, that's your solution to everything, isn't it?" Luffa scoffed. She reached out her left hand, and curled the fingers of her simian paw, beckoning him to come after her. "Well, come on! let's see you try it!"

Rehval commanded his warriors to attack, and they did, only hesitating slightly. There were thousands of them, but Luffa stood her ground. She reared back and howled, then took a deep breath, and spewed what looked like yellow fire from her muzzle.

The Saiyans flew away from the path of this attack, but instead of exploding or damaging anything, the energy formed a massive globe in the air, which separated into white blobs. There were dozens of them, twisting and contorting in mid-air, and then they all sprouted arms, and heads... the heads of ferocious apes.

As the Saiyans quailed in terror, Luffa howled with laughter. It was a childish prank, at least when this sort of technique was employed by a normal Saiyan. The "ghosts" produced by such ki would explode on contact, but when the ki was that of a Golden Oozaru...

"Everybody dies!" shrieked the ghost apes as they flew out in every direction. Their task was simple: chase down a Saiyan and explode in their faces. They swarmed across the basin in a frenzy, and their quarry scattered in a desperate attempt to escape them. Within seconds, the skies lit up and the ground quaked from massive explosions. Even Luffa was amazed by the power she had unleashed. An ordinary planet would have been rendered uninhabitable by just one of these explosions. But Rehval's powers had made Nagaoka much sturdier than any normal world, and so the devastation was merely catastrophic. The crust of the planet was scarred with craters and fissures larger than entire cities, and hundreds of Saiyans were wiped out without a trace. The explosions were so bright that it almost seemed like daylight for a few seconds at a time, but the full moon continued to shine down over the carnage.

Against this backdrop, Luffa charged straight for the enormous likeness of Rehval, tackling it to the ground. That it was larger in size than the golden ape made no difference. At best, the earthen creature could only bring up its arms to protect itself from some of Luffa's thunderous blows. Nevertheless, she persisted, drumming her massive forearms down on Rehval's, and chipping away fragments of his avatar with each second. Rehval's power allowed the dirt and rock to be more durable than either Rehval or Nagaoka would have been alone, but even so, Luffa's onslaught was too much for it to handle.

"You can't be doing this!" he said. "It just can't..." And then one of his giant arms crumbled into rubble. Then the other.

Luffa raised her head up and roared, then slammed her monstrous face into the avatar's exposed chest. As the rock-Rehval screamed, it broke apart into pieces.

*******

On the opposite side of the planet, Rehval... the part of him that was still a Saiyan man, sat upon his throne, and clutched painfully at his chest. That had hurt. It had actually hurt. This was not supposed to happen. His bond with the planet and its mass was only supposed to share power, not pain.

He stumbled out of his seat and paced around in a tight circle, fighting the wave of panic that accompanied the pain. He couldn't retreat from this. With his avatar destroyed, Luffa would surely turn her fury against his followers, and he couldn't afford to lose more of them than he already had. He needed to pull himself together and deploy his avatar again, only this time with more power, but he soon found he couldn't do it as quickly as he had before. His symbiosis with Nagaoka's geological energy gave him vast power. A Saiyan could easily destroy a planet, but only because a planet lacked the will to defend itself. Nagaoka now had a will--Rehval's--but it still took time and effort to bring its immense power to bear.

"Damn it all," he muttered to himself as he gasped for breath. "She was waiting for this! Past two weeks... she was just biding time... None of her attacks were meant to accomplish anything! She was just keeping us busy until the moon was full!"

And then he sensed another pain, this time in his right shoulder blade. It felt like something had struck him, but how?

*******

At the battlefield, Luffa had completely routed her foes. With her ghost apes all destroyed, and the Saiyans in full retreat, she charged a Gallick Gun and fired it in the direction of some of her enemies. Most of them managed to avoid the gigantic purple blast, but it continued on its path, eventually carving a mile-wide trench in the ground. Luffa continued to attack, even when there was no target to hit. There was simply no respite. The Saiyans would sense a ki larger than anything they had ever imagined possible, and then they would immediately sense an even larger power than that. Luffa's battle power just kept rising, again and again and again.

Endive had led a small group to a safe distance-- if the word "safe" could still have any meaning-- and they watched the colored lights from Luffa's rampage. It was apparent that the Golden Ape's attacks were damaging the planet's surface, in spite of Rehval's boasts that this was impossible. At best, his followers believed that this was the ultimate test of their master's power. If Rehval could survive this battle, then he would truly prove his invincibility. His most faithful servants would trust him to rise to the occasion and slay Luffa as final confirmation of his teachings. Endive thought this way, or at least she wanted to, very badly.

Her faith in Rehval was rooted in denialism. She had obeyed him, even to the point of humiliating herself and betraying her most cherished principles. If he were truly divine, then she could at least tell herself that it was all worth it, that the things she had cast aside had never had any real value in the first place. But if Rehval lost, then it had all been a lie, and she would know for certain that she had allowed herself to be enslaved by a fraud. All those nights in his bedchamber would have no spiritual purpose at all.

On some level, she wanted Luffa to prevail, and expose the truth that Endive already knew but could never admit. And then Luffa would kill his followers in short order, so at least there would be little time for Endive to endure the shame.

"What should we do?" asked one of the other Saiyans who was with her. Of this group of survivors, she had the highest rank. And it was this authority, more than loyalty, truth, or shame, that guided her.

"Regroup," she said. "We must stand and fight for our lord, and die, if we must."

If there was any chance of victory, Endive would cling to it. Whatever Luffa stood for, the golden ape would only bring death. If her master really was a fraud and a liar, then Endive's only choice was to fight to make his lies into truth.

*******

Other Saiyans reached the same grim conclusion as Endive, but taking the fight to Luffa was easier said than done. Before, there had been a reasonable assumption that Luffa could be attacked en masse and overpowered. Now, she shrugged off ki blasts from hundreds of Saiyans without even bothering to dodge. The Jindan cultists were the mightiest of their species, empowered by Rehval's alchemy, but against the Golden Oozaru they were like ants battling a dinosaur.

Occasionally, Luffa grew annoyed with their constant distraction, and swatted them aside, but the focus of her offense was directed at the planet itself. Luffa fired energy blasts from her mouth, hands, and eyes, assaulting the ground until there was only bare rock. And then, finally, she broke through to a magma chamber, releasing a torrent of molten lava into the air. Elated by the destruction, Luffa threw her arms over her head and roared triumphantly, the hot magma splashing around her like blood from a wounded animal.

"No! I won't allow this!"

Luffa turned to find Rehval, in the form of another of his avatars. This time, he rose up from the lava itself, forming a body of rapidly cooling igneous rock. "You're not strong enough to destroy this planet! You can't be!"

He leaped toward Luffa, determined to restrain her somehow. Instead, she slipped around him with a speed that belied her bulk, and struck his back with a double axehandle.

"Too bad," Luffa growled. "You shouldn't have cut off your tail, Rehval. Maybe if you'd kept it, you could have become powerful enough to keep up with me!"

"Shut up!" he screamed.

"Some of the Free Companions still have their tails, right?" Luffa asked. "You probably couldn't *wait* to cut theirs off, but you wouldn't have had the time. Maybe some of them could-- oh, that's right!"

He charged at her with a ki blast in hand, but she sidestepped it and reversed his attack into a throw. His blast misfired, and while it was immense, it was also passed harmlessly into space. Luffa ripped a piece of the planet's crust and slammed it down onto Rehva's avatar.

"You don't have any of those Free Companions sitting around, do you?" she said. "The ones who still had their tails, I mean. No, they're all dead, because I made sure to kill them all while I was waiting for the full moon!"

"SHUT UP!" Rehval screamed. He rushed at her again, desperate to connect with any sort of offense. "I won't be defeated this way! Not by your tail, not by a primitive... vulgar... transformation. Not by my own moon!"

Luffa humored him for a moment, allowing his fists to strike, but they did no damage at all. She lifted his avatar over her head and threw him down into the geyser of lava nearby. Then she aimed her finger at him and made a low, guttural noise.

*******

The Vengeance Cannon was Luffa's finishing move. In terms of technique, it wasn't terribly special. She simply focused a a great deal of ki energy into a thin, intense beam, which allowed it to penetrate deeper than more conventional ki attacks. Her name for the attack had been chosen at a whim. At the height of her fame, alien fans somehow decided that she already had a technique by that name in her arsenal, and so she decided to indulge them. Over time, she came to decide that she rather liked its brutal simplicity. What made the attack so fearsome was the user. Powered by Luffa's Super Saiyan form, the Vengeance Cannon could tear through nearly anything. Powered by Luffa's Super Saiyan Oozaru form, the word "nearly" was placed in grave jeopardy.

In his fortress, Rehval felt searing pain once more. He had felt each attack Luffa had made on the planet's crust, but this paled in comparison to the sensation of Luffa's Vengeance Cannon drilling through his avatar's eye. He clutched at his own face and doubled over in pain, and then he felt another agony in his torso. Without seeing or hearing, he knew that Luffa's beam had passed through the avatar, and down into the ground, and all the way through the planet itself. The damage to the planet was echoed in his own body.

His defenses were collapsing. There was no escaping the conclusion anymore. Each attack weakened him a little more, making her next attack that much more effective.

There was no longer any other choice. He would have to go on the offensive while he still had the chance. He forced himself to stand upright, then hurried to the bench where he kept his elixirs. He had prepared certain formulations in advance, in case things didn't work the way they were supposed to. But these were experimental, and meant to be used on others. He had never anticipated that he would be so badly pressured, especially here, at the height of his greatness. As he raised the decanter to his lips, he briefly considered summoning one of his followers back to the complex, but a shooting pain in his leg reminded him that there simply wasn't time.

"T-to the future," he gasped before drinking. It was his traditional toast when using alchemy to enhance his powers. After draining half of the bottle, he poured the rest onto the ground, letting it soak into the soil at his feet. Then he stumbled toward his bedchamber to lay down.

He collapsed after five paces.

*******

Xibuyas saw his chance and was determined to take it. Less than a mile away, the monster that claimed to be his mother was ripping up whole chunks of the planet's surface, while lashing out at any warriors who dared to interfere. They were like mere insects to her, beneath her notice. And this, he decided, would be her downfall. With her back to him, he had a perfect shot to end this nightmare once and for all.

He had never used the Star Seax in battle before. The technique was incomplete and took too long to gather energy, and it was only useful against a single opponent at a time. There was simply no practical use for it. Other enemies could be killed with less powerful techniques. He estimated that the Star Seax could kill Luffa, but he knew she was too nimble to score a direct hit with it.

Now, however, the situation was ideal. Luffa had become stronger--stronger than Xibuyas had ever imagined possible-- but she was also a much bigger target, and much more stationary. And with her attention focused elsewhere, he had the opportunity he had dreamed of for most of his life. As soon as he had finished preparing the attack, he fired without hesitation.

The Star Seax was a thin wafer of ki that flew out from his hands like the blade of a guillotine. It would cut right through Luffa's tail, reversing her transformation. It was strange to think of the humanoid Luffa as an easier opponent, but right now she was surrounded by Jindan cultists, and without her ape form, they could overpower her if they all worked together.

As the young Saiyan guided the Star Seax toward its target, he realized that this was the moment that fortuneteller had told him about! He would surpass Luffa, not by exceeding her power, but by becoming the instrument of her downfall. Once she was dead, he would take his rightful place as the strongest Saiyan of all! He watched as the white energy blade streaked ever closer, and awaited his destiny.

And then Luffa jumped into the air, and the Star Seax passed harmlessly underneath her.

"No..." was all he could say. His eyes went wide with shock. And so, when Luffa moved towards him, faster than he ever imagined possible, he had no other reaction. He didn't even think of trying to escape.

"Nice shot, Katem!" Luffa roared. Her voice was even more horrible than before. With a demonic speed, she snatched him up in her hand and raised him up to her face.

"You were going to die anyway!" she shouted, her hot breath blasting him like a monsoon. "But you had to take your best shot, and face me one last time! So I guess you take after your mother after all! Too bad for you that you chose the wrong side!"

She tightened her grip, and Xibuyas cried out in pain. He could feel his ribs cracking under the pressure, and he knew that this was only the slightest sample of Luffa's full power.

"Then again, you remind me a lot of your grandfather, boy!" she snarled. "He made the same mistake you did. Thought he could stab me in the back and live! Well don't say I didn't give you a chance, son! I tried to show you what you were dealing with, and you wouldn't! Take! The hint!"

Xibuyas felt as if he might black out soon, but somehow he remained conscious. He almost wondered if this was some sadistic trick of Luffa's. A way to keep her victims awake and prolong their suffering. He couldn't stop screaming long enough to ask.

"Well that little stunt you just pulled was the last straw, Katem. You want to be my enemy? Fine! Then you can die like my enemies! Anything for you, son! Anything for you!"

There was a moment of clarity, where Xibuyas began to accept death as the only escape from his fate beneath the long shadow of Luffa, this horror that demanded his birthright. Even if he had managed to kill her, the memory of such a monster would forever stain his honor. And then, just as he expected to breathe his last... Luffa dropped him.

Xibuyas lacked the strength to sit up, but luckily he landed on the ground in a position that gave him a view of what was happening. It felt like an earthquake, and as Luffa turned away from him, Xibuyas could see a figure rising up from the molten lava. He wondered if it was Rehval again, returning in another one of his avatars. But this seemed different somehow. Xibuyas didn't know why, but he could sense something dreadful about this. His instincts begged him to run away, far away, but it was all he could do just to roll over on the ground.

"I forbid it, Luffa!" It was Rehval's voice that Xibuyas heard. What he saw looked nothing like the Saiyan King who had raised him. It was enormous and yellow-hot, like molten metal, with globs of lava solidifying upon its surface. The head of the figure resembled a skull with skin stretched across its features, but no muscle or flesh.

"Well, look who decided to fight back!" Luffa scoffed. Xibuyas couldn't believe her tone. He could scarcely comprehend the horrible energy he sensed from this new form Rehval had taken. All he knew for certain was that Rehval was now pulling out all the stops, and Luffa was still unimpressed. Was she bluffing? Or was all of this truly just a game to a monster like her?

"You're a thing of iron, Luffa!" Rehval announced. "Strong and resilient, but vulgar nonetheless! You golden glow is nothing more than the heat of the forge, where mine is drawn from the very core of the world!"

The Rehval-thing rushed toward Luffa, and the two titans struggled against each other. At first, it seemed like an even struggle, and then Rehval actually shoved the ape off her feet! She responded with a furious blast from her mouth, which spilled across Rehval's body harmlessly.

As they fought, Rehval continued to rave, shouting one final lecture before one of them was destroyed. "The universe teaches men to prize gold. The heavier elements only form in the dying ages of a star's lifespan. Iron is common because red giants fuse it in vain, generating less energy than the cost of the reaction! Gold is formed near the end, but only some, interspersed with so many others! Supernovae spread it across creation! It accumulates in meteors, which crash onto newly born planets, still hot with the fires of genesis! The gold and other heavy metals sink into the mantle, until eventually the planet cools enough. The crust forms, and when meteors impact afterward, they leave deposits of gold, but only in trace amounts! Man finds it in streams, and the purity of it entices him to seek out its truth!"

"That truth lies in the center!" Rehval screamed. "I have concentrated the gold from the interior of Nagaoka! This is the purest, most perfect expression of the bond between myself and this world! You mock me for cutting off my tail, Luffa? Well now I've cut off my entire body to become your better! I do it gladly, for the good of the Saiyan race! For the good of the future! For everything that you are not!

"We're better than you, Luffa! The Saiyans have evolved beyond your brand of thoughtless violence and selfish independence! Beyond the hypocrisy of compassion and honor! Gold needs no such bonds! It dwells among the lesser matter, but remains apart, and always supreme! And I alone know how to teach those lessons to the Saiyan people! I am the master of our destiny! It must be me! And it will be me, for ever and for ever!"

He had been punching Luffa repeatedly with his fists, which now seemed to be made of gold, now that they had cooled off somewhat. Xibuyas understood none of it, but he supposed that what Rehval said must have been true enough if he was winning. And then he heard laughter...

"You really are something, Rehval," Luffa said. "You put everything you had into that."

The gold-Rehval hesitated as she pushed back against him. She slammed her own fists into his gilded body and broke most of the dross off of him. There were dents left in his body from each strike she made.

"You really did it, didn't you?" she asked. "I can sense your power, I can tell it's you, Rehval, but there's nothing Saiyan in there anymore. You really did merge yourself with the planet, didn't you? And that's why you lose."

She struck him again and again, much the same way he had battered her. Each blow sounded like a bomb going off overhead. The difference was that when Luffa took a hit, her body was bruised or bloodied, at worst. Whenever Rehval was struck, his metal body was deformed by each impact.

"I don't get all the details of what you've done to yourself," she roared. "I don't much care, but I've fought enough weird enemies to learn how to figure out what I need to know. You can reshape that body of yours. Add mass to it, pull it back together, or even make a new one if you need to."

She put her hands together and blindsided him with a double-axhandle that twisted his torso into a right angle.

"But you need power to do that stuff, and right now, you're using all the power you have to match my strength. You can't fight me and defend yourself at the same time. Arrrghhh!"

Rehval had contorted his left arm into what looked like an enormous length of wire, and drove the end into Luffa's shoulder like a spear.

"I'm not the only one who's let their guard down, Luffa!" Rehval cried.

"Cute," Luffa said. She reached for her shoulder, as if to pull out the offending object, but instead she pointed at the ground and fired a ki blast. The resulting explosion engulfed them both, and flung Xibuyas through the air like a rag doll.

As the youth tumbled through the air, he marveled at the sheer chaos that surrounded him in all directions. Luffa and Rehval's combined power was so intense that it was difficult to notice anything else. Around him, the ground was cracked and pulverized like the surface of a giant lump of burning charcoal. Orange light shone through the cracks, like open wounds on the back of some impossibly large creature. Xibuyas couldn't sense his Saiyan comrades, but he could hear their terrified screams, and he could smell the familiar odor of death.

In that moment, Xibuyas knew that he ought to be afraid, but he was too overwhelmed by the situation to really feel anything. He seemed like a helpless observer, a passenger in his own body.

When he finally hit the ground, the pain of the impact was almost a relief, since it confirmed that there was at least still a planet left to land upon. As he lost consciousness, he wondered whether he would ever wake up again.

NEXT: The Escape

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (144/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: This story takes place about 1000 years before 66 years after the events of Dragon Ball Z.

  [3 November, Age 762.   Earth.]  

"Luffa!   Can you hear me?   This is Trunks, calling from the Time Nest!"  

"I was wondering when you'd call," Luffa said.   "I was starting to wonder if this earpiece you gave me got damaged while I was fighting Nappa."

"You did fine with him," Trunks said.   "Gohan and Krillin survived, so history is back on course, but your mission isn't over yet.   My father... Vegeta, he's still possessed by that purple energy.    You'll have to help Goku defeat him to finish the job."    

"Help him?" Luffa asked.    She had been standing on a rock formation for several minutes, observing their battle from a respectful distance.  "First of all, Kakarot seems to be doing just fine on his own.   Second, I wouldn't think of dishonoring him by interfering in his battle.     That goes for your father, too.   We may be enemies in this situation, but we're all Saiyans here."    

"Luffa, you don't understand.   Someone already interfered in this battle by altering history.    Our job is to balance the scales and put things back to normal.    I understand that you don't like the idea of double-teaming an opponent, but it's the only way to restore the timeline."

Luffa didn't budge.    Overhead, Son Goku and Vegeta were battling through the air, and their blows sounded like thunderclaps whenever they connected.    

"You weren't kidding about Kakarot's training in the afterlife," Luffa said.    She pulled a chunk of Saibaman out of her pocket and took a bite while she watched.     "He's improved a lot since Raditz.   It looks like he leapfrogged Nappa while he was at it.    And without Nappa to get in the way, your dad shouldn't be too much trouble."

"You're wrong," Trunks said, his voice growing more desperate.     "Luffa, I know how this battle is supposed to play out.    My father has an ace in the hole.    You must have noticed by now.   He's got a tail, but Goku doesn't!"

"So what?" Luffa asked.   "He'd need the light of Earth's full moon to transform into a giant ape, and the sun hasn't even gone down yet!"

"He doesn't need the moon!" Trunks cried, "he can make his own--"

"Wait a minute," Luffa said before he could finish.   "What the hell is he doing up there?"

High above, Vegeta was ranting and raving about how he was willing to destroy the entire planet to win his fight with Goku.   Luffa could sense his energy building, and he brought his hands together on the left side of his chest.   At the same time, she could sense Goku increasing his own ki to prepare a countermeasure.   But this climactic struggle wasn't what had Luffa's attention.    She floated up into the air to get a better look at Vegeta's posture.  

"Luffa, you've got to do something!" Trunks pleaded through the earpiece.   "Goku barely managed to deflect this attack before, but with that dark energy multiplying my father's power, he won't stand a chance!"

But she wasn't listening to him anymore.     All around her, the skies trembled from the intensity of power Goku and Vegeta were preparing to fire at one another, but Luffa paid no attention to this either.   She simply flew straight towards Vegeta, and just as she reached him, he launched his attack.  

"Gallick Gun!" he screamed as he hurled a column of purple light down at the Earth below.   Goku responded in kind with his own energy beam, similar to the Gallick Gun, but clearly distinct.    Luffa ignored him completely.

"Hey!" she shouted at Vegeta.    "Are you making fun of me?!"

"Wh-what?!" Vegeta gasped as he finally noticed her approach.  

Luffa held up her hands to match Vegeta's pose.   "Don't screw with me, you royalist trash!   I never learned how to do the Galick Gun 'properly', and here you are imitating my style!    Right in front of me!"

"That's absurd!" Vegeta growled.    "This technique has been in my family for centuries!   I've never seen you before in my life.   Tch!   Why am I arguing with you at a time like this?   Who the hell are you?"

"Who am I?!   I'm the lady that's gonna tear you out of frame!"

"Begone, woman, before I--!   No!   No!"

It was this distraction that gave Goku the opening he needed.   Luffa sensed a sudden surge of ki energy from below, and Vegeta's Gallick Gun was  overwhelmed.   In mere moments, Vegeta found himself on the defensive, and finally he was engulfed in Goku's bright blue beam, which launched him higher and higher into the atmosphere.

"Damn youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!" Vegeta screamed.

Luffa watched him disappear into the stratosphere and extended the middle fingers of both hands to express her farewells.  

"O... okay?" said Trunks through the earpiece.  "I guess that's one way to do it."    

"So is that it?" Luffa said, finally responding to Trunks.   "Wait, is he supposed to die in this battle?    Were you born before or after this happened?"

"That isn't the problem!" Trunks said.    "He's going to roll off of that Kamehameha wave--"

"Kamayhammy-what?"

"The blast Goku just shot at him!" Trunks said.  

"Hey, don't get mad at me for not knowing all this stuff," Luffa shouted.    "You're the one who wanted me to beat up your dad."

"He's... going... to come back... and transform into a giant ape," Trunks insisted.    "You need to keep Goku alive until the others can help--"

"I keep telling you, he doesn't need any help," Luffa said.    "And neither do I.   After taking a hit like that, Vegeta won't have enough power left to... wait, what is that?"

Luffa's had once been the Legendary Super Saiyan, but her power had been severely limited after an incredible battle on Planet Nagaoka.    She had no idea whether this change was permanent, but she had resolved to carry on at least as far as she could to help Trunks.    But the problem was more than just a loss of power.    Whatever had happened to Luffa had also affected her ki perception as well.   And this was a more dangerous affliction, since she wasn't aware of it.     Vegeta rocketed back to the battlefield like a rogue comet, completely catching her off-guard.    

"You two bastards have pushed me far enough!" Vegeta roared.  "As much as the form disgusts me, I can't think of a better way to finish you than to crush you both as a giant ape!"

Luffa was surprised by his speedy return, but she recovered quickly.     "Nice try, idiot.    It'll be at least an hour before it's dark enough for the moonlight to work, and I can beat you into the ground long before then!"

"Moonlight?"  Goku asked.   Luffa knew little about the man, except that he had lived most of his life on Earth, cut off from Saiyan-kind.   She was beginning to suspect that didn't even know he was a Saiyan until his brother Raditz invaded.

"Oh, yes, you thought you were very clever, Kakarot." Vegeta snarled.   "You destroyed this planet's moon so we wouldn't be able to use it against you.    Too bad for you that I have other ways to transform."  

With that, Vegeta began to yell.   He raised his right hand over his head, and curled his fingers as though grasping at the air.    Then a globe of ki energy appeared in his hand, and he made a fiendish grin.  

"What the hell is he doing?" Luffa asked Trunks.   "He put a big chunk of his  ki into that, but he can't hit us both with one attack.   Is he trying to blow up the planet again?"  

"I already told you--" Trunks tried to explain, but Vegeta beat him to it.  

"Burst open and mix!" Vegeta shouted as he launched the energy ball into the sky.   Luffa expected it to explode, or to fly back down and attack either Goku or herself.    Instead, it diffused into the air, and a curious glow appeared...

"It's artificial moonlight!" Trunks shouted through the earpiece.   "If you look at it, you'll turn into a giant ape!"  

But Luffa already knew.   She could sense Vegeta's power rising as the Oozaru transformation took hold.   Nearby, Goku didn't change at all.   He had no tail, and he also seemed to have no idea what Saiyans could change this way.   As for Luffa herself, she could tell Trunks was still talking, and she could hear Vegeta gloating, but she couldn't make out the words over the pounding rhythm of her own heart.

Real or fake, the light Vegeta had created was all Luffa could see.     She could feel herself beginning to change.    It was that... tightness in her skin, the sensation that always seemed to come just before her body violently expanded in size.    Just like the last time.  

On Nagaoka.    

When her body nearly tore itself apart!

A chill ran through her entire body, and she made a strange noise that might have been described as a wail.   And then, just as she felt the effects of the moonlight taking hold, she shut her eyes tightly and averted her gaze.    She wasn't entirely sure of her actions.   It was like her body was acting without her.   Like dropping a hot potato before feeling the heat.    

"No!" she gasped.    "No!"  

"Luffa, what's happening out there?"  Trunks asked.  

"Nothing!    I'm fine!" Luffa lied.   She reached for the earpiece to remove it, or at least turn it off.   But her hands were trembling too badly for her to get a proper grip.   In her frustration, she fired a small ki blast at the side of her head and fried the device.    She smelled burnt hair and electronics, but not burnt flesh, so she was satisfied that she still had at least some control over herself.  

"It's all in your head, you coward!" she snarled as she tucked her hands under her shoulders.  It didn't help.   She was shaking all over now.   It wasn't just the Golden Ape transformation on Nagaoka that haunted her.    She found herself recalling the Tikosi Hiveworld as well.     There, the insectoid scientists of the Tikosi conducted cruel experiments on her.   One in particular was designed to trigger her Giant Ape transformation, only to cancel it partway.    They would turn her back and forth, or simply leave her suspended between forms.   She thought she had worked past that trauma, but Vegeta had proven otherwise.    

Not far away, she could sense Vegeta chasing after Son Goku.    Trunks had told her that the mission depended on her keeping him alive.     Instead, she found herself running in the other direction, desperate to get control over herself.    As she moved, she fired wildly in the direction of the false moon, but it didn't seem to do any good.     Vegeta's technique was a substitute for a genuine moon.    It only made sense that it couldn't be destroyed as easily as the real thing.   She crouched on the ground and cursed herself for lying down in a fetal position while she took stock of her situation.    

"Shouldn't have blasted my own ear like that," she grumbled between rapid breaths.    "But at least the other one still works.    And I can open my damn eyes as long as I keep my back to that light.    That's easy, right?   So why won't I open my eyes?    Oh, you know why not, dammit!   Dammit!"

She wished that her wife was here.    It had taken so long for her to go to Zatte when these episodes happened, and sometimes Luffa wasn't sure Zatte had been able to help much, but at least it had been better than gutting it out alone, and this was worse than just about any nightmare she'd had.   But Zatte was gone, maybe forever.    Just like Dr. Topsas, and all of her other friends, and her parents, and her son... And it wasn't difficult to blame herself for that situation.     She had been too weak, too afraid, and too unworthy, and so she had lost them all, one by one.    And now Trunks was learning that lesson just like everyone else.  All that mattered about her was the Super Saiyan, and that was over now.    Without that thing, she was nothing special, just a woman teetering on the brink of madness.  

Instinctively, she curled her tail between her legs, and felt its fur in her still-trembling hands.   In her darkest hours, Luffa had taken solace in her tail, both for the Saiyan pride it represented, and for the intensive effort she had put into training it as a child.    From a young age, she had believed that if she could overcome the weakness in her tail, she could rise above any other obstacle.   It was why she had taken such offense at Saiyans like King Rehval, who encouraged their people to amputate their tails.    She could hear Goku's agonized screams, even at this distance.    Vegeta had kept his tail, and it was clear which one of them had made the right decision.    

There was a simple solution to her problem.   Luffa could cut off her tail, here, and now, and then she could fight Vegeta without worrying about the fake moon.  It wouldn't be that difficult.   One sharp twist and it would all be over.   It would hurt, but she had suffered far worse pain in her short lifetime.    It would betray her Saiyan pride, but Luffa didn't have much of that left anymore.    Rehval had shown her just how despicable the Saiyan race could truly be, and Raditz had shown her that there were even lower depths they could sink to.    Was this why Goku and Trunks had no tail?   Had they learned the same painful lesson that Luffa was contemplating now?  

Goku's howls grew louder, and Luffa's fear began to give way to rage.   She wanted Vegeta to pay for this humiliation, and if mutilating herself got the job done, then maybe it was worth it.  And then she heard another scream.    

It was Vegeta.    She could barely sense any power from Goku at all, but he had used what little he had to fire a parting shot.    

"Hah!" she whispered through clenched teeth.    "Kakarot, you dog."

Luffa rose to her feet.    

*******

"My eye!    How dare you!" Vegeta roared.  

At the ape's feet, Goku lay broken and defeated, but still defiant.  

"Heh!    Somethin' for ya to remember me by," he gasped.    

Vegeta raised his massive paw to crush his enemy, but then he cried out in pain once again.    When he turned to see who had attacked him, he couldn't help but laugh.    

"You again!" he chuckled.    "And here I thought you had lost your will to fight, woman!    Maybe you have.   If you transformed yourself the way I have, then you might stand a chance.    But it looks like you've come here to die instead!"

Luffa pointed her hand at him, still keeping her eyes shut.   Her tail waved behind her back.   "I don't need the Oozaru form to beat you down, Vegeta," she said.    "Maybe I'll take out your other eye and finish what Kakarot started."

"You filthy scumbag!" Vegeta snarled.   "You dare to challenge me, but you're too frightened of the moonlight to even open your eyes!     When I'm through with you, I'll make what I did to Kakarot seem quick and painless!"

Luffa waved her hand to encourage him to attack.   "Kill me if you think you can kill me," she said darkly.   "It's your only chance."

He rushed towards her, just as Luffa expected him to.    The fear had not subsided, nor had the trembling in her body, but Luffa still had enough in her to keep the Giant Ape busy.   She dodged his blows, and while she couldn't see which of his eyes was injured, it was easy enough to deduce it from his movements.    Luffa made sure to stay on his blind side and fired as many ki blasts into his flank as she could muster.    

It wasn't about beating him.    She would if she could, but she knew the goal now had to be to stall him.    From Trunks' perspective, this battle was history, and it had already been fought and won without Luffa's involvement.    All she had to do was keep Vegeta too occupied to kill anyone that he wasn't supposed to.   All she had to do was counteract the dark energy that still churned inside of him.    Luffa could sense this on top of his Saiyan power, and she knew that this alien power was her true enemy.      

As she ducked and dodged, she fought to overcome her terror.    It was just like it had been with Nappa.   Each time he hit her, she felt herself getting stronger.   Against Vegeta, she doubted that she could survive many of his attacks, so she focused on mental strength instead.  Each blow he failed to land was a boost for her confidence.    

This was the wisdom she had gained from her tail.    This was why she couldn't cut it off, even now, when it made all the sense in the world.   As a little girl, she had forced herself to overcome her weakness.   Not all at once, like some brazen Super Saiyan smashing her way through entire armies, but one step at a time.    She would survive this Vegeta, and then she would overcome him, and then she would surpass him.     That was the way of her people.   Maybe they had all forgotten, but she still remembered.  

And she always would.

*******

[February 25, Age 850.   Toki Toki City.]

Luffa returned to the Time Nest victorious, but badly hurt.   In the unadulterated history, the fateful battle between Goku and Vegeta was a mismatch to begin with.   Between the dark energy amplifying Vegeta's strength, and Luffa's mysteriously diminished power, restoring the timeline had proven just as tricky.  

"I'm just glad that fat guy with the sword showed up when he did," Luffa grumbled as she wiped the blood off her face.   "Your dad's one stubborn bastard, that's for sure."

"I'm sorry.   I should have retrieved you from the time jump," Trunks said.   He reached out to help Luffa up off the floor.    

She nearly waved him off, but thought better of it and accepted his help.   It wasn't because she wanted it, but she suddenly realized how little she knew about Trunks, or this world he had dragged her into.   Helping him had been almost automatic for her, after years of diving headlong into adventures as a Super Saiyan, but the fight with Vegeta and Nappa had forced her to admit that those days were behind her, at least for the time being.   This new situation called for a more cautious approach.   She wasn't sure she could trust Trunks, but it might work to her favor to get him to think he could trust her.    

"Thanks," she said, hoping that it sounded sincere.  

"It's the least I can do," Trunks said.   "I wish I could join you on these missions, but I need to stay here in case I get a bead on whoever's behind this."  

"Don't worry about me," Luffa said.   "I may look pretty banged up, but I got a lot out of that last scrap just now.    My power isn't back to normal yet, but with a few more fights like that one, and I'll be ready for anything."

"It's not that," Trunks said.    "You were chosen by Shenron, so I know you can handle it.    It's just... well, I wouldn't mind fighting with my father one more time, even if it's on opposite sides."

"I wouldn't know," Luffa mumbled.   She had killed her own father long ago, and found the experience disappointingly anticlimactic.   She wasn't sure if she envied Trunks or pitied him.

He led her out of the Time Vault, but before they could leave the Time Nest, he heard a noise from above, and they looked up to find a large bird soaring in the upper reaches of the Time Nest.   It suddenly occurred to Luffa that the entire structure of this place resembled an enormous birdcage floating in some sort of green cosmic haze.    

Then they heard the click of heels on the cobblestone road that connected the Time Vault to the portal leading to the city, and they looked down to see someone walking towards them.   It was a woman, even shorter than Luffa, with mauve skin and coral pink hair.   Her clothes were similar to Luffa's compression shirt and baggy pants, but over this she wore a purple jacket with a yellow sash tied around the waist.   The cut of the jacket was unusual, as the lower section billowed out around her lower legs, almost like a dress.    The upper section stopped at her torso and wrapped loosely about her arms, exposing her shoulders completely.    Her neck-length hair was styled in a way that revealed her pointed ears and a pair of large yellow gems that hung from her lobes.

"He-loooooo!" she said cheerfully.   As Trunks nervously returned her greeting, she noticed Luffa, and waved to her.    

"Er, this is the Master of the Time Nest," Trunks explained.    "She's the Supreme Kai of Time, and a very important person."

As he said all of this, the Kai stood behind him and began posing and making silly faces.    Luffa had no idea how to take this.  

"Kai," Luffa said.   "I've heard about them before.   They're like the kami, who oversee different planets, right?"

"Sort of," Trunks said.    "Only the Kais are on a level above that.     And the Supreme Kais are higher still.   She manages the flow of time throughout the entire universe, keeping a close eye on history and protecting it."

As he said this, the bird that had been circling above them chose this moment to alight on the Supreme Kai of Time's head.   It was at this moment Luffa noticed that the bird was  about the same size as the Kai.   Before she could ask what the bird was called, the Kai angrily shooed it off of her head and started scolding it like a child.    The bird cooed in reply, and it was impossible to tell if it understood her words or not.  

Luffa looked at Trunks, who seemed even more confused, if such a thing was possible.    

"Well, like I said, she's an important person.  Just trust me..." he said with an awkward chuckle.  

Luffa shrugged and nodded indifferently.    When it became clear that the Kai was no longer paying attention to them, Trunks resumed escorting Luffa to the city.

*******

Luffa's second visit to the hospital was much shorter than the first.   The Namekian healer, Pulmon, rejuvenated her just as quickly as before, and this time she didn't need to sleep.  After her discharge, she and Trunks began to roam the walkways of Toki Toki City

"I'm still waiting to hear back from Admin about your quarters," Trunks said.   "It's probably going to take a while to get you back home.   The Dragon Balls won't reactivate for at least six months, and that's assuming we won't need them for some other crisis."  

"Don't worry about it," Luffa said.   "I... I don't really have any pressing business waiting for me.   Besides, I can always take a spaceship."  

"We, uh, don't really have those here," Trunks said.  

"You can travel through time, but not space?"

"Pretty much," Trunks said.    "The Supreme Kai of Time created Toki Toki City as a base for the Time Patrol.   Most of us are from Earth, and Earth is pretty isolated from the rest of the universe."  

"That's pretty much what Pulmon told me about his own people," Luffa said.   "I was asking him about The Camelian Empire, trying to get a handle on how far it is from Earth, but he said he'd never heard of it."

"The Camelian Empire?" Trunks said.   "I've never heard of it either.   Is that where you're from?"

"No," Luffa said.    "I was born in interstellar space.   Never spent too much time in one place.   I lived on a few planets for a while, but none of them were what you'd call landmarks.   But Camelia's a big deal, with a lot of star systems under their control.   If I knew where that was in relation to Earth, I could get my bearings.    But it's starting to sound like this is a pretty isolated part of the galaxy, or maybe a whole other galaxy."

"We'll get to the bottom of this, Luffa," Trunks said.   "But I appreciate you helping us out in the meantime."

"Don't mention it," Luffa said.    "You've got Saiyan blood yourself.   So you know I'd go stir crazy without some action.   What I don't understand is how even the Saiyans I've been fighting could be so different from the ones I know," Luffa said.  "Nappa claimed that your father was the result of generations of breeding, like he was this ultimate warrior, but he wasn't that strong.   If my ki wasn't all out of whack, I could have taken care of them both without any trouble.   So what was he bragging about?"

"Well, my father was the strongest Saiyan of that era," Trunks said.   "From what I've heard, back on Planet Vegeta--"

"Yeah, Nappa mentioned a Planet named after your old man," Luffa said.    "I've never heard of it.   It's like there was this whole other population of Saiyans completely cut off from mine, with their own kings.   Could this be connected to whoever's been changing history?"

"Hmm... Well, it's not impossible," Trunks said.  "But the temporal incursions we've been seeing are all confined to a fairly recent period, a few decades at most.  I think the enemy would have to go back pretty far to change the Saiyan homeworld.    On the other hand, I've gotta admit, I know a lot more about time travel than Saiyan history.    Wait a minute... of course!"

"What is it?" Luffa asked.    

Trunks drove his left fist against his right palm as he spoke.    "I should have thought of this before," he said.   "We have a research division in the Time Patrol.    One of them could probably clear this up for us.    They might even be able to track down some planets you're familiar with."

"Perfect," Luffa said.    "Where do we find these guys?"

Before Trunks could answer, there was a beeping noise from inside the sleeve of his jacket.    He held up his left hand to reveal a wristwatch communicator.    

"It's the Supreme Kai of Time," Trunks said.   "She must have discovered another change in history."   He touched a button on the face of his watch and said: "This is Trunks.    Go ahead."

"What's the big idea walking out on me while I was dealing with Tokitoki?"  replied the agitated voice on the other end of the call.     "That's extremely disrespectful, you know!"

"I--!   I'm sorry!" Trunks said.   "I just... it seemed like you were busy, and I needed to see to Luffa's injuries and--"

"What sort of example does that set for a new recruit, huh?   Did you even think of that?   Look, just get back here, okay?   I need to show you something!"

"R-right!" Trunks said.    He switched off the transmission and hung his head.   "I need to go," he said with a sigh.  "It sounds like something important.   At least, I hope it is..."

Luffa began to crack her knuckles.   "If it's another mission, that suits me just fine," she said.   "I need to blow off some steam."

"No, if she didn't want me to come alone, she would have said so," Trunks said.  "And this might just be a waste of time.    You can talk to someone at the Research building while I handle this."    He pointed to a box-shaped building in the distance.    "Number 731.   You can't miss it.    Just tell them I sent you.    You can find me at the Time Nest when you're finished."    

With that, he turned and ran, leaving Luffa by herself.   She shrugged, and made her way to the structure.    As she approached, she stared at the large glyphs on its wall and tried to memorize them for future reference.    

*******

The inside of the Time Patrol Research Corps building looked completely different from the high-tech exterior.    The walls were stone and ceramic tile, and the lighting was produced by a series of long tubes that hung from electrical fixtures on the ceiling.   Along the halls were wooden doors with square glass window panes.     As Luffa couldn't read the room numbers or the placards, she simply peeked into each window, looking for an unlocked office with someone inside.    When she finally found one, she couldn't see anyone through the window, but she could hear voices from within.    She took five steps inside, and discovered a man and a woman leaned up against a desk, making out.    

"Whoa!" Luffa said as she averted her gaze.  

"Uh!    Can I help you?" the man blurted out awkwardly.  

"Right!  Yes!" the woman added.   "Can I help you?   Um, also?"  

They were fully dressed, but Luffa was unsettled enough that she held up her arm, as though afraid to look directly at them.    "I... I need a historian?" she said.   "Someone who specializes in Saiyan history, maybe?"  

"Oh!  Um... well I'm a dietitian," the man said.  

"I don't actually work here," the woman said.   "I'm with maintenance.  Here to fix..."

"The wiring."  

"Right!   Yeah, the wiring.    I should... really get back to that."

"Look, I just need to know where your history department is," Luffa said, "and I'll let you get back to... whatever you were doing."

"Dewar's still here, isn't he?" the woman asked.    

"Probably.   He almost never leaves his office.   He's down in the basement.    Room Number 034."  

"Look, let's just assume I can't read," Luffa said.    She didn't particularly want either of them to show her where to go, but she didn't want to waste time either.    

"It's the room with the foil on the window," the man said.  "You can't miss it."  

Luffa muttered a few words of gratitude and shut the door behind her.   Two minutes later, she stood before an identical door in an identical hallway, only this one was underground, and the door had aluminum foil covering the window.   She could hear people talking and laughing inside.    Having lost a good deal of patience, she didn't bother knocking, and simply walked right in.  

She found an alien inside, sitting in an old leather office chair.     He looked mostly humanoid, save for a thick tail that he had threaded between the back of the chair and the seat.   His feet were propped up on a bookshelf.     They looked like the toes of a bird, or some sort of dinosaur.    His hairless head had an odd shape to it, like a nut with a slight point at the top.    And his skin was a pale blue color.     He didn't even notice Luffa's entrance.    His attention was firmly on a small video monitor that was sitting on top of a file cabinet.    

"Ha!  That's what you get, Queen Trowel!   Next time, listen to your advisers instead of cutting out their tongues!   Huh?   Hah?"

He cupped his hand over one of the rimmed holes on the sides of his head and leaned closer to the screen.    "What was that, Your Majesty?   You say there won't be a next time, because Sergeant Prunshir shot you a hundred times?     Ohhhhh!   Who could have seen that coming?    Heh heh heh!"

"Are you Dewar or not?" Luffa asked, startling the alien.  In his excitment, he dropped the box of snacks he was holding.    

"Holy crap," he yelled, gasping at the chest of his tank top.   "Oi, what's the big idea?   The sign on the door says 'Do Not Disturb', doesn't it?    Can't you read?"  

"No, I can't," Luffa said.    

"Oh."   He put his thumb on his chin and considered the door behind Luffa.   "Maybe I should look into a pictogram.    Something with a picture of a guy knocking, because apparently nobody knows how to do that anymore!"  

"Oh, I know how to knock," Luffa said, "I just don't care.   I need a historian.   Trunks sent me here."

"Trunks?!"  he asked.   "Welllllll now, this just got very interesting.   The big shot Time Patrollers don't usually call down here for us little old researchers."   He reached for a holster that was lying haphazardly across his desk, and as he stood up to wrap it around his waist, his tail snaked into one of the desk drawers and produced a pistol.    

"What's the gun for?" Luffa asked.

"What isn't it for?" Dewar said as he held it up and admired the craftsmanship of it.   "I'm nowhere near as strong as Trunks, but I've done a few field missions from time to time.   Never let it be said that Dewar, pride of the Research Corps, can't hold his own in a fight.   But it never hurts to have a little insurance, eh?"

"Pride of the...?   They stuck you in the basement," Luffa grumbled.   "Look, this isn't a field mission, at least not yet.   I just needed to pick your brain for a minute."   She pointed at the monitor he had been watching.    "Maybe you can pull up some images from history, like whatever you're working on here."

"Oh, that?" Dewar said with a chuckle.   He reached out with his tail and pressed the "off" button with the very tip.    "This is just a TV set.  I was watching some old dramas from Ryno VII."  

Luffa put her hand over her face and shook her head.    

"What?" he asked.   "It's an important window into their culture!"  

"I need to talk to someone about Saiyan history," Luffa said.  "Do you know anything about that?"

"Saiyans?    Wellllll now, the plot thickens, eh?   Let me just get my notes and I'll join you both at the Time Nest."  

"No," Luffa said.   "Just you and me.  For now.   I mean... Trunks has a lot going on, right?    No need to pull him away from what he's doing."  

"Hmm, I guess he is a pretty busy guy.    Fine, where's your quarters?"  

"I don't have a room assignment," Luffa said.  "I don't know what the holdup is."  

Dewar threw his hands up.   "Those dopes in Admin!" he said.    "Always taking their sweet time.    Looks like I'll have to bail them out again!"  

Before Luffa could ask what he meant, he reached into the pocket of his jeans and withdrew a  device that looked like a large pen.    He then powered up a computer terminal in the corner, and plugged the pen into an access port on the side.    

"What are you doing?" Luffa asked.  

"Admin goes through all these silly algorithms to assign living quarters," Dewar explained.   "It's all a lot of nonsense.   Somebody tried to rig it to match roommates by blood types, which only slows things down.    Fortunately, I, er, acquired a master access fob a while back.   Oh, I told myself I'd only use it in an emergency, but the bureaucratic wheels turn so damn slow, and there's so many poor souls like yourself who cry out for help.   I can't just leave you on the streets, now can I?    What did you say your name was?"

"Luffa," she groaned.  

"Ah, nice name.   Haven't heard that one before, but very Saiyan.     There we are!   See?  Now this was exactly what I was talking about.   They've got a dozen openings, but they're waiting on results from some personality quiz that you probably didn't even know you were supposed to take!   Wellllll now, I'll just fix that.    Favorite food...?  Cup noodle, of course.    Tree you identify with...?   Redwood sounds good."

"What's a redwood?" Luffa asked.

Dewar shrugged without looking up from his work.    "Never seen one before, but I'm guessing they're red.   And... blood type is XJ3.    A minute to process the data, annnnnnnd...  Bingo!"

He snapped his fingers and looked back to Luffa.    "Piece of cake!   Come on, Luffa, let's take a look at your new home at..."  He looked back at the screen to read the address, and his mood quickly deflated.   "Oh... oh nooo..."

"What is it?" Luffa asked.  

"Er, nothing!   Nothing to worry about!" he said cheerfully.    "I just noticed that you've got a roommate!   Nothing to worry about.   I'm sure you'll get along just fine.    Jayncho's a little anti-social, but once you get to know her, she's a really nice lady!   Heh heh!   Uh... yes."  

He shut off his computer and gestured for Luffa to follow him out of the office.   As she followed, Luffa noticed that he was still carrying his sidearm...

NEXT: Fitting In.

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (136/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[14 November, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Moments ago, Rehval III Trismegistus, King of the Saiyans, had declared victory. Large swaths of the galaxy didn't know it yet, to say nothing of the rest of the universe, but his victory was absolute nonetheless. In a telepathic address to Luffa's allied fleet, he announced that their attack on his planet would be futile, and he demanded their unconditional surrender.

Luffa didn't understand Rehval's power completely, but she had learned enough to get the basic idea of it. Even a middling Saiyan had enough fighting power to destroy a planetary body. As the Super Saiyan, Luffa had assumed she could annihilate Nagaoka with ease, wiping out Rehval's Jindan cult in a single stroke. But the planet had resisted her, like a mighty warrior blocking an offensive technique. It was like the planet was a living thing, and according to Rehval, it now was. He had merged his life essence with Nagaoka. The way he explained it, planets possessed a tremendous energy of their own, but they lacked the consciousness to wield it like a Saiyan. Now, he controlled Nagaoka like an extension of his own body. As long as he remained on the planet, both would be indestructible.

If that were all it was, then Luffa might have been tempted to leave him trapped on the prison he had built for himself. But Rehval had other abilities. His followers had traveled to other planets, seeding them with an alchemical potion of his own creation. Once activated, the elixir gave Rehval partial control over the mass of those planets as well. He could mold a large chunk of earth into a monstrous figure, one powerful enough to destroy the planets' inhabitants. Luffa had fought these "rock-Rehvals" before, but she had no idea that he could operate so many of them simultaneously, and now there were hundreds of them scattered across the galaxy, each one holding a different planet hostage.

The only way to stop them all was to destroy the man who controlled them, but Luffa had just tried that and failed. She had fired a ki blast down to Nagaoka's surface, only for the energy to be absorbed and then fired back in multiple directions. Rehval claimed he had gained that ability by studying genetic samples from Luffa's wife. Zatte could do similar tricks with ki, but on a much smaller scale. Each of Zatte's people were born with a unique power. The idea of Rehval simply duplicating it for himself was galling, even after everything else he had done.

Rehval claimed that everything he had done was for the good of the Saiyan species, but Luffa knew the truth: He was a small, petty man, frustrated with his own lack of importance. He couldn't stand the idea that Saiyan history would carry on without him, and so he had turned to alchemy and treachery to cheat his fate. He had promised his followers greater power, but his Jindan potion only bound them to his cause, just as he had bound himself to Nagaoka. Now, he demanded that every Saiyan in the universe join his cult, so that he could fulfill his mad dream of converting their once-proud race into nothing but a hive, interdependent upon their immortal king.

What sickened Luffa the most was how eager her fellow Saiyans were to accept this. Guwar had defected from the Jindan Cult when he realized how depraved it really was. It was Guwar who revealed the location of Nagaoka to Luffa, so that she could destroy it and save the Saiyan people. But at the first sign of adversity, he resigned himself to returning to Rehval on bended knee. Luffa left Guwar's dead body in the cargo bay of her ship.

As she made her way back to the bridge, she could send the ki of the crews of her fleet. All around her, the allied fleet seemed to struggle with what had just happened. They had surrounded the planet to ensure that no one could escape. Now, they began to break formation. The Federation ships moved away from the planet, perhaps fearing an attack, while the Saiyan Free Company seemed to fall apart completely. A handful of ships descended into the atmosphere, their crews apparently not willing to wait for their leaders to make up their minds. One of them broke orbit, only for another SFC ship to open fire on it. The commanders were probably trying to contact Luffa for further instructions. She wasn't sure what to tell them.

Stepping out of the lift onto the bridge, she found Zatte rocking back and forth in the pilot's chair, her hands clutching at the red hair on either side of her scalp. Once she noticed Luffa, Zatte looked up at her with dread. "This is all my fault," she said, her voice trembling with remorse. "Luffa, I'm so sorry..."

For a moment, Luffa worried that Zatte had been hurt somehow, but there was no sign of an injury. Luffa almost wished there had been. It would be far easier to treat a physical wound. She put one arm around Zatte, then leaned over her to reach the computer terminal. There was no time to comfort her now, not while the fleet was still in a combat zone. Satisfied with the ship's status readouts, Luffa opened a channel with the Saiyan Free Company's flagship.

"Get control of your people, Princess," Luffa said as Seltiss' image appeared on the viewscreen. "I see SFC ships trying to land on the planet, fighting each other..."

"We're going to surrender," Seltiss said.

"What?!" Luffa shouted.

"You heard what my father said," Seltiss replied. Luffa could tell that Seltiss was upset. The teenage Saiyan was doing her best to hide it, but it wasn't enough. They had all come to this planet expecting to take Rehval completely by surprise, and he had turned the tables on them all.

"I don't give a damn what he said," Luffa growled. "We came here to kill your father. It's just going to take longer than we thought, that's all."

"He took your best shot and bounced it back at us," Seltiss said. "It's over, Luffa! He's too strong for you. For... any of us. All we can do now... is admit defeat."

"You fool!" Luffa shouted. "He doesn't give a damn about any of you! He just wants you to take that potion of his, and then you'll under his thumb forever!"

"And how is that any different from what you wanted?" Suddenly Xibuyas stepped into view and stood beside Seltiss. He was Luffa's son, though Rehval had acquired the boy and somehow matured him to an age of sixteen. Another piece of the family that Rehval had stolen from her.

"Katem, listen to me," Luffa began, even though she knew he wouldn't. She wanted so badly to believe that he belonged to her, at least in some small way. She wanted him to see her with something other than hate and envy, but it was hopeless.

"Listen to you? Or what?" Xibuyas demanded. "You'll attack us? Kill us? We only joined forces with you because of your power, and now it looks like Rehval has beaten you at your own game! It's not the way I wanted this to end, but at least you've been exposed as the fraud you are! As if any mere woman could be a 'Super Saiyan'."

"You're wrong," Zatte mumbled to herself, so quietly that only Luffa could hear. "It's not her fault. It's mine..."

"That's enough, Xibuyas," Seltiss said before he could say any more. "Luffa, I'm sorry it turned out like this, but he's right. You didn't mind bossing everyone around when you were the one on top. I have to do what's right for my people. If we don't surrender to him now, he'll just hunt us down later and destroy us. There's nothing else we can do."

Luffa said nothing. She just stared at them in disbelief. After a few seconds, Seltiss closed the channel.

"It's because of me," Zatte said. "Luffa, I never meant for this--"

"It's not you're fault," Luffa insisted. "He got ahold of a sample of your DNA, and he studied it until he found a way to replicate your powers. It's not like you gave it to him."

"He never would have known about me if I hadn't been with you!" Zatte protested. "I was so stupid. I could have just died on Dorlu Prime when the Tikosi invaded, or you could have killed me on the Makyo Star... Then he never would have been able to stop you--!"

"That's enough!" Luffa said. She pulled Zatte up by her shoulders and lifted her out of her chair. "You're a survivalist, aren't you? I need you to focus. He can manipulate energy the same way you can, and he's got a whole planet powering him, but that doesn't make him unstoppable! We can still come up with something, we just need to regroup!"

Before Zatte could say anything, Luffa noticed a flashing light on the console, indicating a priority transmission. With an irritated grunt, she lowered Zatte to the deck, then turned to answer the call.

"Booth," Luffa said when she saw the man on the viewscreen. They had left him and a reserve force at the Gelbo System, halfway between Nagaoka and Federation space. Like Seltiss, he appeared to be troubled, but determined not to show it.

"Luffa," Booth said. "I'm surprised to see you're still alive. I suppose this proves what Rehval said earlier. He really doesn't see you as a threat."

"Don't tell me his telepathy reached you all the way on Gelbo," Luffa said.

"Telepathy?" Booth asked with surprise. "No, I was contacted by Prester Ganzut back home. One of Rehval's rock monsters appeared there, and informed him what was happening on Nagaoka."

"Good, then it saves me the trouble of briefing you," Luffa said. "We need to regroup and link up with your forces so we can plan a new attack. The Saiyan Free Company has switched sides, and--"

Booth knit his brow before he spoke. "Luffa, there isn't going to be a new attack. Not while Rehval is holding Federation planets hostage."

"I can destroy those rock creatures in a few minutes!" Luffa protested.

"Yes, I know," Booth said. "But it would take you two weeks to get back from Nagaoka, and Rehval has promised to destroy Despye before you even get close enough to save it."

"Then I'll defeat him on Nagaoka, and solve the problem from this end!" Luffa insisted.

"And how will you do that?" Booth asked. "If you had the power to destroy his planet, you would have already done it. What else does that leave? A surface attack? Our troops wouldn't last an hour against a hundred Saiyans, and I'm guessing he has a lot more than that waiting down there. Not to mention the entire Saiyan Free Company has joined him, so we'd need to fight them as well. Just what exactly were you planning to do, Luffa? Besides getting yourself killed?"

"What I won't do, Marshall," Luffa snarled, "is bow my head and beg for mercy like a sniveling coward."

Booth sighed. "Right, your honor. I had forgotten what we were really fighting for out here. Somehow I got it in my head that we were trying to protect the lives of Federation citizens. Thank you for reminding me."

"Don't hand me that, you pompous little despot!" Luffa shouted. "You never gave a damn about anyone! All you ever fought for was a chance to seize more power for yourself! Well how many planets can you rule with Rehval lording over you for the rest of your life?"

"More worlds than I'll rule as a corpse, I should think," Booth said quietly. "At least this way, I'll live long enough to find out. I've already contacted the rest of your fleet, Luffa. I'm recalling them to Gelbo, and then we return to Federation space to await Rehval's orders. You're welcome to return along with them, but I had a feeling you wouldn't leave Nagaoka quietly. What happens next is up to you. It was an honor serving under you, Madam Federatrix. Have a splendid death."

He cut off the transmission, just as Luffa was drawing a deep breath to continue shouting at him. The viewscreen returned to its default display, which showed the planet Nagaoka below them. Whatever harsh, defiant words she had in mind never materialized. There was nothing to say, and no one to hear.

Then she felt a slight shudder in the deckplate beneath her feet. The ship had begun to move. Luffa glanced over at the pilot station and saw that Zatte had entered a new course.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm taking the ship out of orbit," Zatte said. She made a pathetic sniffle, then looked back at Luffa and offered a slight smile. "Not to retreat, of course. I just don't want anyone shooting at the ship while you figure out your next move."

But there was no next move, and Luffa knew it. What infuriated her most about Marshall Booth's words was that they made a lot of sense. The only way to beat Rehval was to fight him in the heart of his stronghold, and there wasn't enough power to make that work. Even if Seltiss and the Federation had stayed with her, the odds seemed impossible.

"Sorry for how I cracked up back there," Zatte said meekly.

"Don't be," Luffa said. "Right now you're all I've got left."

"I want you to know," Zatte told her. "Whatever you decide, I'm with you all the way. You can still save them, Luffa. I know you can do it."

She was referring to the Saiyans. Zatte was convinced that Luffa could redeem the Saiyan people from Rehval's control. She wanted Luffa to be accepted by her own kind, and this had fit in neatly with Zatte's other beliefs: that Luffa would change the universe for the better, that Luffa was destined to achieve some great thing, that Zatte was destined to support that holy mission at all costs. But now, Luffa was beginning to think none of those things would come true.

The realization was painful, but it finally lifted the mental block that had kept Luffa from deciding what to do next. There would be nowhere to run, and her pride refused to surrender, so her only choice was to go on fighting, even if there was no realistic chance of winning. Even if that meant disappointing the one woman in the universe who still believed in her. It was a grim admission to make, but with each moment, Luffa felt that it was the only option that made sense.

"I want you to take the ship out of the system," Luffa said to her. She kept staring at the viewscreen as she spoke. "Not too far, but make the jump to superluminous speed, so they'll think we've left."

"Okay," Zatte said. There was a glimmer of hope in her voice. As the ship moved away, Luffa switched the monitor to display the view from the stern of the star-yacht. Nagaoka quickly receded, and when Zatte activated the faster-than-light engines, the entire system quickly shrank into an unusually bright point of light among the stars. Luffa never took her eyes off of it.

"That... that should be far enough," Zatte said after several minutes. "Now what?"

"Set a course for some friendly planet," Luffa said. "It doesn't matter where, but outside of Federation territory. We can't trust them anymore."

You've got it," Zatte said. "But... what do we do when we get there?"

"I'll drop you off," Luffa said. "Then I'm coming back to Nagaoka to finish things. One way or another."

"What?!" Zatte shouted. She leaped up from her seat and grabbed Luffa by the shoulders. "Luffa that's insane. You'd be trapped there. Even if you made it to the surface, what would you do when you got there?"

"There's only one thing left to do," Luffa said. "They have to die. All of them."

"Luffa, no--"

"All of them," Luffa said. "Every last Saiyan. The whole stinking species. It ends here. The lies, the treachery, the cowardice. I'm going to kill them all."

She was trembling with rage. She hadn't noticed it until Zatte put her hands on her arms, but now there was no mistaking it. For Luffa, it only confirmed that this was the right decision.

"Luffa, please, stop and think about what you're saying! How many Saiyans are down on that one planet right now? If they all die, will there be enough left to keep the population going? You'd be driving your own people to extinction!"

Luffa finally looked away from the viewscreen and stared into Zatte's eye. "You know I'm right!" she shouted. "You've seen what Saiyans are capable of. You've seen the depths they'll stoop to. Rehval doesn't care how many people he has to kill to get what he wants. And the rest of them don't care what happens as long as they get to be on the winning team. Nothing matters to them, Zattie!"

She pulled away from Zatte's arms and began to pace angrily around the bridge. "Dammit to hell, nothing matters to them at all! It's all a lie! It's all been lies!"

Zatte rushed to her side and put her arm around Luffa to console her. She tried to speak, to say something comforting, but she couldn't find the words. There were no words. Luffa knew it, and perhaps Zatte was beginning to realize it too.

"Saiyan pride," Luffa said between short, angry breaths. "It's worthless. They'll abandon everything they have just to get a little glory. Freedom doesn't matter to them. Honor is nothing. Rehval's turning them all into... into livestock, and they don't even care."

"You're not like them," Zatte said. "Please, listen to me. I'm begging you. Whatever happens, it doesn't change what you are. You're my wife and I love you."

"I love you too," Luffa said. "But you know I'm exactly like them. I've let you down before. I've betrayed you. I've been more interested in puffing up my ego than in things that really matter. I've just gotten more self-conscious about it, that's all."

"Luffa, no..."

"They have to die," Luffa said. "My species is a cancer on the whole universe. I see that now. This is what I was born to do. I have to destroy my own race for the good of everyone else. Tell me I'm wrong, Zattie. Tell me you don't believe what I'm saying right now."

They looked at each other for what felt like several minutes. At last, Zatte hung her head and sighed. "If he wins... no one will be safe," she said. "And you can't beat him without going down there and beating his followers."

"There it is," Luffa said. "I'm the only one who can do this now."

"He forced you into this!" Zatte said. "If this is how the Saiyans are supposed to end, then it's his fault, not yours! He's the one that tied all of the others to his own fate! He's forcing you to kill them all!"

"Maybe so," Luffa said, "but I think it would have come to this eventually anyway. What else could I do? Where else could I go for a worthy fight? I think this might be how it ended up for Chanisp, or Old Darbock, or the other old heroes. The Saiyans had to rise up and find a way to bring down the Super Saiyans, or else they'd surely be destroyed themselves. Well, this time I'm breaking the cycle, once and for all. The universe will just have to learn to get along without us."

"Okay," Zatte said. There was a long pause, and then: "Okay. If this is what you have to do, then I'll go along with it. All I ask is that you take me with you."

Luffa shook her head. "You know I can't do that. You've seen how powerful Rehval is now. You wouldn't survive. I don't know that I'll survive this."

"I don't care!" Zatte said. "I can't just stay behind while you do this. I have to be there, with you. You're the xan-nil'Dor. If this is your purpose in the universe, then I have to do everything I can to help you see it through."

"I know about all of that," Luffa said. She couldn't bear to look at her. As a child, she might have dreamed Saiyan suitor offering to die alongside her in a glorious battle. But Zatte was no Saiyan, and Luffa was no child. "It's not worth getting you killed," she said as she turned away from her.

"Yes it is!" Zatte pleaded.

Luffa stopped and slowly turned back to face her again. "What are you saying?" she asked.

"I'm saying that if you can't survive this battle, then I... I want to die with you." Zatte said.

The words shook Luffa to the core. "How can you say that? You're a Dorlun," Luffa reminded her. "A survivalist. Staying alive is what you do best."

"None of that matters anymore!" Zatte said. "Right now, I'm not a Dorlun, and you're not a Saiyan, okay?"

She walked towards Luffa and threw her arms around her. "Right now, you're my best friend and my lover and my wife, and I would do anything to be with you for as long as I can. If it costs my life, then so be it."

"Zattie, this isn't like you. You're not thinking straight."

"No, I'm not! I'm thinking that all I want to do is show you just how much you mean to me. Let me die for your cause, xan-nil'Dor. Let me burn with you. Isn't that the way you want it? The two of us dying together in an epic battle?"

Of course it was. The thought of it was too tantalizing to ignore. Luffa had imagined such a glory back on Dorlu Prime, when it was just the two of them against the Tikosi hordes. The last several months of their marriage had been marinated in a fascination with death. Even now, Zatte was caressing the hair on the back of Luffa's head, the way she always did while they talked about how dangerous their last combat mission had been.

Zatte hadn't always been like this. She had changed so gradually that Luffa hadn't really noticed until now. Perhaps she was right. Maybe Zatte wasn't a Dorlun anymore.

And that was what made up Luffa's mind.

"All right," Luffa finally said. "We'll go together."

Zatte looked up from Luffa's shoulder. "You mean it?"

"Of course I do," Luffa said. "You're right. About me, about us. Leaving you behind... well, it just doesn't seem right."

Zatte stepped away from Luffa and took her hands in her own. She was still crying, but the look on her face was joyous. "I... can't tell you how much this means to me," she said. "To be with you, right up to the end. The end. This is it, isn't it?"

"You never know, we might survive this," Luffa said. "But... I doubt it."

"It doesn't matter anymore," Zatte said. "You're going to save the universe, and I'll be with you every step of the way. I won't let you down... I... I... Oh, come here."

She pulled Luffa in and embraced her, cradling the back of her head with her hand.

"I love you," Zatte said. "I know it's awkward for you, but if this is the last chance I get to say it, then I want to say it. You're everything to me. Ha ha, I'm shaking like a leaf right now. I'm actually excited, you know? I never died before. It sounds funny to say it. I'm going to die. I'm frightened, but I don't even care anymore, because I know I'll be with you for the rest of my life. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Luffa said. "I'm... I'm scared too. I don't think this Super Saiyan business turned out the way I had in mind. I hope I didn't screw it up too badly."

"You didn't," Zatte said, her breath hot against Luffa's ear. "You won't. You're perfect just the way you are."

Luffa swallowed hard and made a strange sound, almost like a stifled howl. Zatte held her tightly. She sounded like she was hyperventilating.

"It's okay," Zatte said between rapid breaths. "It's okay. Shhhhh. You don't have to say it. I know how you feel. I've always known. My dear, dear Luffa."

"I know that you know. That's not good enough," Luffa said. "I gotta get this out."

She leaned into Zatte's embrace and took in the fragrance of her hair, of her neck, of the sweat in her clothing.

"You're my wife," Luffa said. "I didn't know what marriage was before you. Every day you've put up with me has been an honor that I don't deserve. You inspire me to push myself to be a better Saiyan... no. A better person. You've even saved my life. I owe you a debt that I can never repay."

"Luffa..."

"I wish it didn't have to be like this," Luffa went on. "That you and I could just stay here forever and hold each other, just like this. But it just can't be that way."

"I know. It's okay."

Luffa kissed her, and for what seemed like a millennium, there was only the two of them, no wars, no legends, no divine plans. When they finally separated, they each wiped the tears from each other's eyes.

"Look at us," Zatte said as she wiped her nose with her arm. "We're about to go off to war and we're bawling like a couple of toddlers."

"Yeah," Luffa said with a sniffle. "Well, I won't tell anyone if you don't."

"Deal."

"I love you, Zattie," Luffa said. "More than I can say. I just want you to remember that."

"Of course," Zatte said.

Luffa embraced her again.

"I love you. And... I'm sorry."

Zatte opened her mouth to ask what she was sorry for, but she never got the chance. Faster than Zatte could react, Luffa had charged her hands with ki, and channeled it into Zatte's body. The resulting shock rendered her unconscious. She gasped, and her left eye widened with surprise, and then she went slack in Luffa's arms.

The enormity of this suddenly hit Luffa, and the tears flowed freely down her face. She wanted to wait for her to wake up so she could explain all of this to her, but of course that made no sense. She would never hear this woman's voice again. Despite the tears Luffa's expression remained stoic, however, as she cradled Zatte in her arms, and carried her the captain's chair.

"I'm so sorry," she said as she lowered Zatte into the chair and adjusted the seat to make her more comfortable. "I really did want you to come with me on this. It'd be even better than you made it sound. I don't deserve what I have in you."

She went to the navigation console and programmed the ship to wait several minutes, and then fly itself along the course Zatte had entered earlier.

"But you can't go," Luffa continued. "No matter how much you want to be there beside me, I can't let that happen. I can't let you die."

Once the autopilot was set, she entered codes to lock out the computer. Then Luffa got up from the seat and knelt down beside Zatte. She ran her fingers along Zatte's cheek, stopping at the edge of the patch that covered her wounded right eye.

"It's because of me and my rotten family that you lost the colony," she said. "Dorlu Prime. My father betrayed you all, and I was too late and too weak to stop the Tikosi. You and Keda were the only survivors, and then we lost her too, because I was too late. And too weak."

Luffa pressed her eyes into the crook of her own arm to dab away the tears. "The Saiyans have to pay for what they've done," she said. "But I can't let you die because of that. You're the only one left from the Dorlu Prime colony. If you die too, because of my weakness... Well, I won't let that happen. You're supposed to want to live dammit. Dorluns are survivalists, and all. But you're ready to throw your life away for me. For me! But... I'm only a Saiyan..."

She stood up and watched the rise and fall of Zatte's chest for a moment, then somehow found the strength to turn away and head for the door. "It's not worth it," Luffa said. "And even if it is worth it... I still won't let it happen. If Providence wants me to do this, then it'll have to settle for my death. No more Dorluns die because of me."

Luffa stood in the doorway and hesitated for a moment. She wanted to take one last look at her beloved, but decided against it.

"G-goodbye, Captain," she said. And then she let the door close behind her.

*******

The star-yacht was large compared to many of the ships Luffa had seen in her life, but the walk to the cargo bay wasn't that long. This time, it felt like hundreds of miles. With each step, she felt the urge to turn back, to return to her wife, even if it was just to take one last look at her. Each step forward was a reminder of everything she was leaving behind, forever.

But she refused to turn back. She allowed herself to feel the grief and sadness, but only so that these emotions could stoke the fires of her rage. The thing within her burned yellow-hot, demanding release. The Saiyans would pay. Jindan would be destroyed. Rehval would die. The universe would be spared their blight forever. It had to be this way. Perhaps one day Zatte might understand that, and forgive her.

As she reached the entrance to the bay, the service droid met her in the corridor. She had nearly forgotten about it.

"PB-2," she said.

"Yes, mistress?" the robot asked. It had come with the star-yacht. PB-2's main function was to roam the ship, tidying up where it could and basically making its former owner feel a bit richer than he would have felt without a mechanical butler. Luffa knelt down to be at eye-level with it.

"I've set the ship on an automatic course. No one's at the controls, so just keep an eye on things and make sure it doesn't hit anything for the next couple of weeks, okay? Zatte's on the bridge. She'll be upset when she wakes up, because I've locked out the controls. Just take care of her for me, would you?"

"Very good, madam," it replied. "When shall I expect your return?"

"I won't be coming back," she said. "Fifteen days from now, I want you to transfer all command codes to Zatte," Luffa said. "The ship will belong to her, is that clear?"

"Perfectly clear, mistress," PB-2 said. The authorization of this was actually a much more complicated than it appeared. In the moment after hearing Luffa's order, PB-2 had silently scanned the sound of her voice, her life sign readings, and her retinal patterns, along with a number of other factors to confirm her identity. These features hadn't originally been part of PB-2's design, but Luffa had paid for the upgrades some time ago, in order to maintain absolute control of the ship.

"Good," Luffa said. "Yeah, good."

She walked into the cargo bay, past Guwar's fresh corpse, and began preparing the small pod for launch. Zatte had acquired this vessel on Ristet IV, and had joked that it was an anniversary present for Luffa. Luffa hoped that, in the future, Zatte wouldn't look back on this gift with too much regret. As Luffa ran through the pre-flight checklist, she noticed PB-2 had followed her inside the bay. For a moment, Luffa assumed that it was going to start disposing of Guwar's body, but instead it followed her to the pod.

"What is it?" she asked the machine.

"Will there be anything else, mistress?" it asked. It's tone was professional and cordial, the same as it had always been. And yet, Luffa couldn't help but hear a touch of sadness in its voice, as though it wanted an excuse to be with her for a moment longer before her final departure.

"I don't know if you can understand this," Luffa said after a heavy sigh. "I sort of hope you can't, because if you do, then I've been treating you like an object this whole time. But... thanks for looking after the place. You've handled a lot of stuff that you were probably never meant to deal with on a yacht, but you performed well. I'm... uh... honored by your service."

"As you say, madam." PB-2 replied. There was no indication that her words meant anything special to it.

"Yeah, I'm probably wasting my breath here," Luffa said. "Take care of yourself, PB-2."

"As you wish," PB-2 replied.

It stood in the corner of the bay, near the door, while Luffa boarded the pod and launched it through the force-field airlock that led into space. Luffa set her course for Nagaoka, and the pod streaked onward to its destination.

Inside the bay, PB-2 waited for a moment, until the bay doors closed. It waited a few minutes more, and then it rolled off to attend to its other duties.

*******

NEXT: No Way Out.

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (132/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[October 25, 233 Before Age. Despye.]

"The shipyard has a few surface-to-orbit cannons. Here, here... and here."

From inside his cell, Guwar pointed at various spots on a map printed from his ship's database. It had always been his plan to share this information with Luffa once he reached Federation space. He hadn't really considered how that handover would work. In hindsight, he supposed that it had been naive to think that he would just tell Luffa what she needed to know and that would be that. They didn't trust him, not completely. And so he was confined to a holding cell while a blue-skinned alien interrogated him over and over.

"Good," she said as she scribbled notes onto a pad. "What sort of ships do they have in the yard?"

He sighed before answering. "Mainly surplus Camelian cruisers, a few privately owned mercenary craft, all stolen, of course. There's some freighters for covert ops and troop transports, but most of those were already deployed. Our warriors would take them to various star systems and then hijack other ships, then take those into Federation space. That's how we managed to avoid being traced back. But you already knew that from the last four times I answered this question."

"Just seeing if you can keep your story straight, Guwar," she said. He didn't know her name, or even what planet she came from. He didn't think she was very strong-- not by Saiyan standards, anyway. But then, he wasn't very strong himself anymore.

"Tell me about the Jindan formula," she said. For a moment he thought she might have read his mind, but he knew this was impossible. It probably wasn't a coincidence either. She kept asking about the same things over and over, expecting to catch him in some lie.

"Trismegistus created it," he groaned as he explained it again. "The rest of the galaxy knows him as the Saiyan King Rehval, but you have to get to a certain rank in the cult before he reveals that to you. Some Saiyans can't handle the truth, so he wipes their memory and makes them repeat the indoctrination until they can accept it."

"Not what I asked," she said.

"I'm just trying to keep this interesting," he said. He got up from his seat in the cell and paced around a bit before sitting back down. Her chair didn't look that much more comfortable than his, but hers had a thin layer of cushioning that he envied.

The alien put her pen to her lower lip. "Oh, it's already pretty interesting, Guwar. Keep talking."

"The Jindan potion makes Saiyans stronger. Something about tapping into a wellspring of energy from the earth, and using it to supplement the life energy in the body. Rehval makes this potion and you drink it." As he mimicked the act of putting a goblet to his lips, he paused as he recalled the rush of ecstasy he felt as he received the power. In that moment, he had felt like he could do anything. It seemed like a hundred years ago.

"Is that how you get the Mindworm?" she asked.

"No, that's a different procedure," he said as he tapped the side of his head. "Your mistress already knows about the Mindworm."

"Mistress?"

"Well, you work for her, don't you? Like, her butler or something."

She laughed quietly and jotted something down in her notes. "Butler, right. Okay."

He shrugged and decided there was no point in prying. "The Mindworm attacks anyone who tries to probe our minds. It protects his secrets. And it's permanent. The Jindan Power, he can take that away whenever he wants. He withdrew it from me while I was on my way here. The catch is, he takes some of my own power with it. Like he's collecting interest."

"So you end up weaker than you were before you started," she said. "I thought I sensed something weird about your ki."

"You can sense my ki?" he asked. He suddenly felt very exposed. Her left eye, the one that wasn't covered by the patch, seemed much more intrusive as she stared into his cell.

"Oh, I can sense more than that, Guwar," she said. "Ki, temperature, heart rate. Why do you think I'm doing this interrogation instead of her? I mean, she's got better things to do, but besides that."

"You're what, then? Some sort of lie detector?"

"Not exactly," she said. "Let's just say I've learned how to interpret a Saiyan's pulse. But enough about me. Tell me about the Nagaoka system again. You said Rehval's on the second of four planets, right?"

"No, I said there was only one planet. Nice try."

She smiled and glanced down at her notes.

"This is a waste of time!" he said. "I already told you everything you needed to know. I thought Luffa would be halfway to Nagaoka now. The longer she waits--"

"You let us worry about that, Guwar," she said. "All you have to do is answer my questions."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, but I probably won't answer."

"Can Luffa defeat him? I mean, she's the Super Saiyan, but is that enough?"

The alien looked up at him with a serious expression. "She's more than enough, Guwar. But you already knew that, didn't you? Otherwise, why else would you risk everything to come here?"

"I... I'm just hedging my bets," he said. "The universe has gotten too hot for Saiyans lately. It's all coming down between Luffa and Rehval, and anyone who doesn't pick a side will get caught in the middle. Rehval's insane, so there's only one other choice."

"You're lying," she said. "If all you cared about was saving your own skin, you'd have taken your ship as far away from here as you could go. Rehval's got you worried. Not just about yourself, but for everyone."

"You can tell all that from my body heat?" Guwar scoffed.

"No, I can tell from your answers," she said. "You're in a big hurry for us to stop this guy, even though he's already punished you for turning against him. And you keep talking about how all the Saiyans will be doomed unless she saves them. You've seen the light, Guwar. Just like I have."

There was nothing he could say about that. He wanted to tell her she was wrong, or that he didn't believe her, but the truth was that he wanted her to be right, at least as far as Luffa being able to win. So instead of saying anything, he just turned and faced away from her, but only for as long as it took for him to pace the length of his cell. She was still there when he turned around.

"Let's move on to those spears you guys always use," she said. "What's the deal with those?"

*******

While Zatte questioned Guwar on Luffa's ship, Luffa herself was briefing the Federation Council, along with its top military commanders, on their planned counterattack. Despye prided itself on the image of a pastorial, agrarian society, but it was also home to a powerful military-industrial complex. Prester Ganzut wore a simple pair of pink overalls and often carried a ceremonial pitchfork when conducting political business. He even smelled of hay, suggesting that he had always just stepped in from tending his fields, though Luffa suspected that he used some sort of farm-scented cologne. The more she got to know the man, the less and less he seemed like a simple man of the land. Watching him host the Federation's leaders in a heavily armored amphitheater only made it that much clearer to which world he belonged.

"Federation observatories have confirmed the presence of a star system in the coordinates you gave us," Marshall Booth said as he addressed the delegates. Luffa didn't care much for him either, but at least his red military uniform told no lies about his agenda. "We don't want to send scout ships, since it might tip our hand, but we've managed to verify just about everything else that Guwar has told us so far. He even told us about an upcoming raid, and gave us the codes to disable their ships. We defeated them easily."

"It's a little too good to be true, isn't it?" asked Emir Plair of Porpozit. He was an ophidian being with thin legs and arms, and a forked tongue that darted out of his mouth every so often. "We've been fighting these cultists for months, with no end in sight, and suddenly this defector shows up on our doorstep and tells us everything we need to win?"

"Attacking Nagaoka won't be a walk in the park, Emir," Luffa said. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward in her chair. "I intend to personally kill every Saiyan on its surface, but we'll need a whole fleet to surround the planet so no one escapes. And we'll need a second fleet to guard the first one from any counterattack. Rehval won't go down without a fight, and Guwar tells me that his Jindan powers are strongest there."

"We ought to contact him first, shouldn't we?" asked Jett Farthing, Leader-1 of Kiqs IV. He looked like a pile of tentacles stuffed into a blue robe. "Once he finds out that we know where his lair is, he might be open to negotiations."

"He's not interested in negotiations," Luffa snarled. "I tried playing nice with him before, and he lured me into a deathtrap. Drang Dedruhn still hasn't recovered from that charmed necklace he gave her. I won't underestimate him again. Besides, why would any of you want to talk peace with that bastard, after everything he's done to your people?"

"Yes, the element of surprise is vital to this offensive," Booth added. "Even if the cult knows that we have Guwar, they won't know when we'll strike, or how our attack will be carried out. We may not get a second chance at this."

"Rehval seems to take that planet pretty seriously, but he'll abandon it if he thinks he's cornered," Luffa said. "Don't forget about those rock-creatures he's been manifesting on your planets. If he can control those things from another star system, then he probably has some way to escape Nagaoka in an emergency." She punched her open palm as she spoke. "That's why we've got to hit him hard and fast, and from all sides. If we catch him off-guard, we can disrupt his contingency plans before he has a chance to use them."

"Seems t'me that's exactly what he'd want you to try, darlin'," said Prester Ganzut. "You take a fleet all the way out to Nagaoka, and leave our homestead vulnerable to his next attack. If I were him, I'd already be on my way here, leading my own fleet into battle while yours heads to an empty planet."

"We thought of that," Luffa said through clenched teeth. Her tail moved in such a way that would have made her growing irritation very obvious to anyone who understood Saiyan body language. But to the aliens delegates of the council, she simply appeared to be slightly anxious to get underway. "The entire Saiyan Free Company will be going with me to Nagaoka, along with the third and sixth fleet from the Federation Navy. Booth will be taking the ninth fleet to the Gelbo System, about halfway between Nagaoka and here. The rest of our forces will remain in Federation space to deal with any new invaders. From Gelbo, Booth can coordinate with both fronts, and deploy reinforcements wherever they're needed."

"Will the remaining fleets be enough to protect us?" asked Saith Reinar of Rastraw II. Her exoskeleton clicked and the gold bangles on her six limbs clinked as she trembled with anxiety. "We've all seen what those Saiyans can do once they reach the surface of an inhabited world--!"

"Which is precisely why we must intercept and destroy incoming ships before that happens," Booth said. "I have already issued new shelter orders for civilian populations, and local defense forces have been mobilized for--"

"None of that will mean anything if a band of these Saiyan fanatics get past your fleet!" said of Bort Samsa of Drakkenfilt. His body was covered in a thick layer of symbiotic moss, which made his form difficult to make out. "They've managed to do it time and time again during this war, even with all of our forces on the defensive! And now you want to send troops to Gelbo!?"

Booth didn't have a tail, although Luffa could imagine what it might have looked like if he had one. "We have to take the offensive," he insisted. "If we adopt a siege mentality, then the enemy will simply wear us down."

"Hold on a moment," said of Chet Vil, President of Boiperpei. He spoke slowly, more deliberately than the others. While they seemed more terrified of the risks, he talked as though giving a speech to his caninoid constituents back home. "In these unprecedented times, it's clear that there's a great deal at stake. And I think that what we should be focusing on is finding a way to attack the enemy and defend our territory at the same time, without dividing our brave fighting forces. It could be very beneficial to the Federation. Why, just think of what we might accomplish, not only in this war, but in future conflicts."

"You're an idiot," Luffa said. "I only came here to brief you all on my plans, so that you could prepare your people for what might happen if anything goes wrong. I'm not interested in suggestions, especially nonsense. You're up, Dotz."

Nearby, Dotz rose from her chair and gingerly waved to the councilors, then clasped her hands together for a moment, before fidgeting with the purple shawl that hung around her neck and shoulders.

"We've been briefed about your psychic, Madam Federatrix," said Tak-Tik of Kopey. "And we know that her predictions are no guarantee of success."

"Dotz can see the future a lot more clearly than anyone else in this room," Luffa said with a smile. "And she's accurately predicted every Jindan attack inside of Federation space. The only reason we've taken as many losses as we have is because we couldn't always keep up with the invasions, but she always knew where they would show up, and when. Tell them what you told me, Dotz."

"W-well," she began. "I've been trying to improve my abilities lately, for the war effort and all. When Luffa told me about this attack on Nagaoka, she asked me to find out if the prisoner she captured was telling the truth about it. I saw a battle taking place there. Very terrible, but I can't tell anything specific about it. So there must be something there worth fighting over."

There was a rumble of murmurs from the council, and Luffa gestured for Dotz to continue.

"As for the Federation, um, well I'm sorry, but I don't really see any fighting inside your territory, not with Saiyan invaders anyway. Other enemies are harder for me to forsee, unless you have one in mind that you want me to look out for."

"I can't be sure of Dotz' maximum limit," Luffa explained, "but she's forecast battles a month before I fought them. The accuracy gets kind of fuzzy further out than that, but it won't take more than two weeks for the fleet to reach Nagaoka. Dotz says the cult won't make a move while we're gone, and that's good enough for me. Even if something did happen, you'll have Booth's group one week away at Gelbo."

"Convenient, ain't it?" asked Prester Ganzut. "That the enemy'd suddenly stop attacking us like that, for no good reason."

Luffa turned to look at him with an eager gleam in her eye. "Oh, I'll give them a reason to stop attacking, Prester," she said. "They won't attack the Federation because they'll all be dead after I finish attacking them. Or maybe they'll win, and you all can negotiate a settlement over my dead body. Either way, the war will be over, which only confirms that Nagaoka is where the last battle will be fought."

"And we should accept this as fact? Based on the words of this... this confidence man?"

Luffa shot a dirty look at a woman who now stood up from the group. "Do you have a problem, General Bailgrad?"

The general made a self-satisfied smirk as she peered over her glasses to look down at Luffa on the floor. "Not with you, Madam Federatrix, but I have a duty to object to the quality of your advisors. It's shameful enough that our entire defense is centered around 'psychic' visions, however accurate they may be."

"Dotz's prophecies are legitimate, General," Luffa growled. "I wouldn't have consulted with her if I didn't believe in her abilities."

"It's not a question of ability," Bailgrad replied. "It's a matter of allegiance, of competency. How can you trust someone who's not even a Federation citizen, who has no stake in this war? Why, just look at him."

"What?!" Luffa snapped.

"Really, Luffa, I'd like to think that women have made some genuine progress in this society. You're a role model, and it's very damaging to your cause when you humor such infantile notions that biology can be circumvented, simply by dressing up like my grandmother. How can we even take seriously a prophet who doesn't know whether he's a--"

As Bailgrad spoke, Luffa stretched out her hand, and quickly twisted her wrist, pointing her index and middle fingers toward the ceiling. As she did, the general suddenly exploded where she stood. Everyone around her cried out in terror, and yet, the force of the blast was directed upward, the energy so carefully controlled, that the people nearest to Bailgrad felt only a stiff breeze. As for the general herself, nothing remained but her shoes, and a plume of smoke that rose up from them.

"I'll only say this once," Luffa said. "Dotz has saved countless lives in this war. She has my complete confidence. If any of you dare to insult her like that again, I will slaughter you without hesitation. Now. Does anyone else have anything to say?"

No one did. And so Luffa adjourned the meeting, and gestured for Dotz to follow her back to her ship.

"Y-you didn't have to do that," Dotz finally said.

Before Luffa could reply, she noticed Prester Ganzut running after them from the corridor.

"Luffa, wait!"

"The meeting is adjourned, Prester," Luffa said coldly.

"Beggin' your pardon," he said, "but you know it ain't that simple. That wasn't some buck private you just destroyed. Bailgrad's got a lot of friends on Despye. Lot of pull in the rest of the Federation too, f'r that matter."

"Hah! Not anymore, she doesn't," Luffa said with a smirk.

"Consarn it, I'm serious, Luffa!" Ganzut said. He wore the pink overalls of a simple Despyan farmer, but he was as much a career politician as the rest of them. His snowy white hair and leathery skin only meant that he had been doing it longer than most. There was a time, not so long ago, when she found him and others like him to be somewhat amusing.

"So am I," Luffa said. "I protect all of you people by choice, and somehow you think I'm just going to sit quietly and lick your boots while you disrespect my comrades? Think again, Prester."

"I know what you're capable of, ma'am," he said. "And personally, I think Bailgrad deserved what she got. Not much of a general if she couldn't see the tactical flaws in pissin' you off."

"She wasn't a general at all," Luffa said. "Just another pencil pusher behind a desk, handed a title she was never qualified to hold. Just like all of those 'friends' on Despye you were warning me about, Prester. Now that I think about it, maybe someone needs to clean things up on this planet of yours."

He chuckled for a moment, and then his eyes went wide as he realized she wasn't joking. For a split second, his arm reached out, as if he meant to grab her by the shoulder. Perhaps this was how he was used to scolding other women of Luffa's size and stature, but he thought better of it, and kept his hands to himself.

"It don't work that way!" he said, almost pleadingly. "Can't you see that? I thought you woulda learned by now how complicated this stuff is. The government only works when it keeps enough of the people in line. Sometimes that means making compromises, darlin'. You scratch someone's back so they'll scratch yours later. You learn to eat slop and like the taste, because not all of us can break a mountain in two, or shoot lasers out of our hands. It's all a popularity contest, and--" he paused to glance at Dotz-- "beggin' your friend's pardon, there's a lot of rotten ideas out there that are a lot more popular than you are."

"Is there a point to all of this, Prester?" Luffa asked.

"Dagnabbit, I'm tryin' to tell you that if you keep throwin' your weight around, there won't be any Federation left to run! You probably don't look at the polls, but folks ain't as keen on you as they used to be. Some of 'em think you're a troublemaker, and there's plenty others who say you started this whole war, just so your Saiyan buddies could take over. Nobody can stop you, but if you push them too far, a bunch of 'em will die trying, and they'll ruin everything else while they're at it. So just... just back off a hair, is all I'm sayin'."

"Is that all? Fine. Here's what I say."

She grabbed Ganzut by the front of his pink overalls, and lifted him off his feet with one hand. Dotz gasped at the sight of this, but knew better than to interfere. To Ganzut's credit, he didn't panic, though it was clear from his expression that he would have much rather stayed on the ground.

"You probably think I don't keep up with current events much," Luffa said as she stared into his eyes. "I'm so busy fighting your wars, or looking for my own battles, so you figure you can do as you please while my back is turned. That's what got Bailgrad killed, Prester. She got so complacent, so used to thinking she was untouchable, that she forgot how to behave when I was right in front of her."

Ganzut tried to talk, but there really wasn't anything he could say at this point, so he ended up just making a series of nonverbal grunts. Luffa smiled.

"The fact is, I have been paying attention to what goes on in the Federation. The deal was that all of you kings and ministers and presidents would work together and keep things running smoothly while I protected you. And you've done a halfway decent job, but there's plenty of corruption and inequality in the system. Humanoids like Dotz don't get the respect they deserve. The outbreak of space cholera on Fedender is being completely mishandled. Some third-rate celebrity has been stirring up a campaign to harass Ichthyoids on Eetie, based on some laughable conspiracy! Oh, and one of your own department heads has been withholding technical services to farmers with malfunctioning equipment. Are you going to tell me to back off from that, Prester?"

"W-we're workin' on that!" Ganzut said.

Luffa dropped him to the floor. "Work harder," she said. "Because when I get back from Nagaoka, I may just decide to take matters into my own hands. And you might not like the way I solve problems. I won't be very popular by the time I get done, but that's never mattered much to me before."

She turned and left with Dotz. Ganzut gathered himself from the floor, coughing and struggling to catch his breath.

*******

"What did he say then?"

"Nothing. What could he say? He probably thought if he argued with me anymore, I'd kill him like I killed Bailgrad."

"Would you?" Zatte asked.

"Nah, he's not such a bad guy," Luffa said. "He's in a difficult position, or at least what he thinks is difficult. I killed Bailgrad because she was an embarrassment. She owed her life to Dotz's predictions. A little courtesy is a small price to pay."

After the conference, Luffa had returned to her ship, which she and Zatte prepared for the long trip to Nagaoka. Together, they took inventory of the supplies in the cargo bay.

"Is that what's next for us?" Zatte asked as she checked the expiration date on a crate of flour. "After we settle things on Nagaoka, I mean. I was starting to think you were planning to leave the Federation for good."

"Oh, I thought about it," Luffa said. "Trouble is, there's nothing else out there for me. I started this alliance to make things simpler for me while I hunted down Kandai. Ever since then it's been more trouble than it's worth, but there's no bigger battles out there for me to find. I might as well stay put and hope the competition comes to me."

"You don't think Nagaoka will be big enough for you?" Zatte asked.

"To tell you the truth, it doesn't matter much anymore. I... maybe this won't make any sense, but I'm sick of this war. When it started, it seemed like a proper challenge, but I've just been fighting variations of the same battle over and over again. The only real issue is keeping my injuries under control, and making sure we get to the next planet in time. It's more about time management than combat. The enemy knows they can't match my power, so they're just trying to wear me down, so what could they hope to do when they're on the defensive?"

"They might have a secret weapon or two," Zatte offered. "Something Guwar doesn't know about."

"Thanks for trying to cheer me up, but I think they would have used something like that by now," Luffa said. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. When this is over, there probably won't be any new fights for a while, and I think I'm okay with that. I think I'd rather wait for something big to show up instead of trying to force it. I just have to keep busy in the meantime."

"So this social justice campaign is your new hobby?"

Luffa lifted a tank of potable water to read the lot number on the bottom. "I'm not looking forward to it, if that's what you mean. I just know there's a lot of people like Ganzut who feel like they're stuck, and to me it doesn't seem all that hard to get them unstuck. There must be something I can do, and I'm not afraid to bust some heads to make it happen."

"Well I think it's perfect," Zatte said. "It might take you a while to get the hang of it, but with your power, there's no limit to the good you might do for people. Not to mention all the other Saiyans."

"What about them?" Luffa asked.

"Well, with Rehval defeated, they'll have to recognize you for what you are, right?"

Luffa put down the tank and shook her head. "You're a dreamer, Zattie. You ought to know by now how stubborn my people are."

"Seltiss is starting to see it," Zatte said. "And Guwar too. They won't admit it, but I can tell. They wanted Rehval or someone like him to prove you wrong, but now that they see him for what he really is..."

"I can see it now," Luffa said. "'And that's the story, children, of how Old Luffa got all the Saiyans to start planting trees and lobby for fairer transportation laws.'"

"Hey, don't sell yourself short," Zatte said. "You can do anything you set your mind to. And don't worry about getting bored. Trouble usually finds you sooner or later."

"Hah! I hadn't thought of it that way," Luffa said. "Maybe it won't be so bad after all."

NEXT: Left Behind

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (127/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[4 August 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

"Perfect. Absolutely perfect."

Treekul had spent the last several days laboring over a hot alembic, preparing a reagent at Rehval's instruction. Her lavender skin was dirty with soot and sweat. Her lips were dry and her eyes bleary from lack of sleep and water. Lowering herself to her knees, she laid the bottle containing her finished project at Rehval's feet, and waited for him to examine it for his appraisal.

"The war goes well, Treekul," he said, ignoring her reagent completely. "Luffa hasn't left Federation space for over four months now. I've bottled her in. It's perfect."

Treekul didn't particularly care about the war. She knew Rehval was waging one, and that he was using his cult followers as soldiers, but she wanted nothing to do with either. She had been brought to this place against her will, and Rehval refused to let her leave. It might have been simpler for him to kill her, but Rehval seemed to fancy the idea of grooming Treekul as an apprentice in the alchemical arts. This didn't interest her much either. Treekul was an alchemical historian, not a practitioner. She had only played along so far in the hopes that Rehval would let his guard down and give her an opportunity to escape.

And so, she didn't particularly care what he thought about the small bottle of golden liquid she had laid at his feet. All that mattered was that she had done as he asked, and that he would trust her a little more than ha had trusted her yesterday. So if he wanted to congratulate himself on his military adventures, Treekul would play along.

"Is that what this is about, boss?" she asked. "Bottling up the Super Saiyan? Because I don't see what good it does you. From what you've told me, everyone you've sent into Fed space has gotten killed. You can't keep this up forever."

"I don't need to contain Luffa forever," he said. "The point is that I've proven that it can be done at all. A day, a week, a month. The duration isn't as important as the precedent it sets. In my own way, I've shown the universe that I can overpower Luffa."

"Sorry, but I don't get it," Treekul said. "The way you talk about the war, it sounds like more of a stalemate than anything else."

"You lack vision, my disciple," Rehval said.

"Maybe, but I think my vision would be a lot clearer if I got some food and sleep," Treekul said. Wearily, she pointed up at the bottle. "It wasn't exactly easy making that stuff. I don't even know what it's for."

"Ah, how inconsiderate of me," Rehval said. He clapped his hands, and a pair of Saiyan men entered the room and stood at attention. Rehval pointed at Treekul like she was an dead animal he wanted removed from his presence.

"Priestess Treekul has undergone a great trial," he told them. "You will attend to her needs, and escort her back here in six hours."

"Twelve would be better," Treekul yawned, rubbing her eyes for effect.

"Six will have to do," he replied with an unctuous smile. "We still have much work to do, you and I."

Treekul sighed and went with the acolytes.

*******

Treekul wanted a shower, but the Jindan Cult seemed to prefer sponge baths. As a priestess, she had enough rank to at least keep the male acolytes out of the room during this, although they insisted on women taking over their duties in their absence. Treekul at least managed to talk them down to merely standing by while she handled the sponge herself.

"Just seems like everything around here is designed to humiliate a person," Treekul mumbled as she squeezed the sponge into a pot before drawing up clean water from another.

"Sure!" said one of the Saiyan women. "It's like the Thrice-Blessed always says. You gotta reduce an ore down to get at the true essence."

"Oh, I get it now," the other woman said. "For a minute there, I thought you were displeased with us, Priestess, and that was why you wouldn't let us help you. But making us stand around and watch is even more degrading than having us wash you off!"

"I'm not making you watch," Treekul grumbled. "As far as I'm concerned you two can go wander off and do something else, or at least turn around."

"Sorry, your grace," one of them said. "We have standing orders to see that no one harms you."

"Yeah, there's still some Saiyans here who haven't exactly... gotten with the program, you know?" the other one explained. "And if one of them lashed out in frustration, an alien like you might be hurt."

"Wonderful," Treekul said. "So where's Maro and Kocho? They're my usual babysitters, not those two men you replaced."

"I don't know, your grace," the first one said. "We normally serve the male priests, so we don't spend a lot of time with the acolytes who serve the women."

Treekul kept her head down so they wouldn't notice her frustration. She had talked Maro into escorting her to the shipyard. He thought she was only interested in meeting the technicians who maintained it, when her true motive was to gather information to plan an escape. But their schedules never seemed to line up, and then she stopped seeing him altogether. This was probably a simple duty rotation, but she didn't know enough about the cultist's work assignments to be certain, and she was afraid that it might be conspicuous if she asked too many questions about it. She could probably find another cultist willing to show her the shipyard, but that might also attract attention.

So she took a different tack, and chatted with the women about the compound's water supply. All she had seen of the cult was a series of natural and manmade caverns, connected by tunnels that were carved out of solid rock. Treekul had never seen the surface of the planet, but from they told her, it was an uninhabited wilderness. Work details were occasionally sent topside to gather fresh water from polar glaciers. So even if Treekul made it out of the compound, there wouldn't be a city of helpful natives to look for.

"Maro told me the skies were beautiful at night," Treekul lied. "Where I come from, there's too much light pollution to see the stars."

"I've never been outside," one of the acolytes said. "But I know there's no stars out there. Someone told me there's cloud cover over the whole atmosphere."

Foiled again. Treekul looked down and pretended to be very interested in scrubbing her left knee. She had no idea where Nagaoka even was in relation to the rest of the galaxy. The stars in the sky might have given her some clues, but now even those were denied to her. It was beginning to look like everything depended on getting herself a ship, and that all hinged on finding Maro.

*******

[4 August, 233 Before Age. Zenj I.]

Maro was his name. Zatte knew this because he wouldn't shut up about it, and she could hear his chatter over the communicator in her ear. All of the Jindan cultists were eager to prove themselves in battle, but that eagerness made them careless. Two miles away from the battlefield, Zatte watched Maro through the telescopic sight of her plasma rifle, and when she was sure that he was standing still, she opened fire.

Her ability to manipulate energy had a number of applications, but for combat, she preferred to bend light around herself as a nearly perfect camouflage. For this shot, she dropped that invisibility field, allowing her to focus her power on guiding her ammunition to the target. It was a difficult technique, one she was still struggling to master, but it allowed her to strike from greater distances. And it worked. She saw Maro fall through the scope, heard his blustery talk cut off in mid-sentence, and sensed his ki energy vanish in an instant.

Luffa was hurting. These groups of Jindan raiders were no match for her, but each one managed to get a few licks in, and she had been fighting them on planet after planet for weeks. Dr. Topsas had developed mycotherapy techniques to heal her quickly, but it still took a few days for that to work, and once it was done, Luffa would have to return to the grind. There seemed to be no end to the Jindan attacks on Federation territory, and no way to take the fight to them.

Luffa probably should have undergone mycotherapy after the last battle, but she wanted to take care of the cultists in the Zenj System first. And on paper, it was probably worth it. She was more than holding her own against the cultists, but Zatte could tell that Luffa's moves were sluggish and pained compared to her usual self. Normally, Zatte never even got a chance to fire her rifle in these battles. Luffa made a game of trying to defeat the enemy before Zatte could get off a shot. This time, Zatte had made five kills, and lining up for a sixth.

It was gratifying to assist Luffa this much, but it was troubling to know that she needed this much help. To a casual observer, the Legendary Super Saiyan would have seemed as invincible as ever. She was a gleaming yellow blur, dodging and deflecting the cultists's attacks, and countering their numbers with overwelming force. But Zatte could hear Luffa's grunts and stifled groans through the communications earpiece. She could sense that Luffa's power wasn't quite as high as usual. And she had seen her various injuries back on their ship.

It reminded Zatte of Luffa's defeat against the Tikosi. As horrific as that day was, Zatte kept reminding herself that it directly resulted in Luffa's ascension, and all of the good that came with it. Luffa was destined to prevail. Providence would see to that. All Zatte had to do was hold on tight and help Luffa along until her purpose was fulfilled.

She noticed one of the Saiyan cultists had broken off from the group. They knew there was a shooter, and this one was trying to track Zatte down. "Good luck," were the words she mouthed to herself. A ballistics team with advanced equipment might have been able to follow the path of her plasma bursts back to the source, but all this man had were his senses. Zatte doubted that even a Saiyan could pick up her scent from two miles downwind, and she had cloaked herself completely from ki senses and visible light. Even if he fired an energy blast in her general direction, it would have to be such a wide dispersal that she was certain she could deflect the worst of it. He'd just leave himself wide open for Luffa.

Take your best shot, she thought as she lined him up in her scope. He seemed to be taking his time, moving erratically through the air to avoid her fire while he prepared himself. And as Zatte waited for him, she noticed something.

It was a Zenjin ki signature, one so faint that she hadn't even noticed it until now. This part of the city was supposed to have been evacuated, but someone had stayed behind. Moving carefully, Zatte looked up from the broken wall she had been using for cover. Less than a hundred yards away, she spotted a child. A little boy, she thought. She had trouble telling when it came to Zenjins. Something about their antennae, and the patterns on the wings that hung from their backs like capes.

He was dressed in an imitation of Zenjin military garb, and seemed to be watching the battle through a pair of telescopic goggles. He reminded her of herself as a child, always playing soldier.

This was bad. If the Saiyan had sensed his life energy, the he might concentrate his attack in this direction. Zatte might still survive, but the boy would definitely not. Even if she managed to line up a shot and take out the Saiyan first, one of the others might pick up where he left off. And Luffa's hands were full at the moment.

There was only one choice. The Dorlun survival ethic placed self-preservation above all else. Luffa was xan-nil'Dor, chosen by Providence, so that made dying for Luffa a rare exception. To forsake that sacred duty for a child she didn't even know wasn't just a bad idea. It was heretical, a betrayal of everything the Dorluns believed.

Zatte leaped out from her cover and ran as fast as she could to reach the boy. Thanks to Luffa's training, she was able to cross the distance in only a few seconds, but using her top speed also meant that she had to drop her invisibility field. The Saiyan spotted her immediately.

"Who--?" the boy started to ask as Zatte snatched him up in her arms. She kept moving, slowing down only enough to restore her cloaking effect around them both.

"I'm Luffa's shadow," Zatte said between breaths. The situation was bad enough without telling him her name. She was zealous enough to bend and twist the survival ethic, but not that far. There were other Dorluns out there, she hoped, and there was no reason to tell this boy of their existence. Not that he was likely to threaten her people, but there was still the principle of the thing.

"I can't see!" the boy gasped.

"I made us invisible," Zatte said. Each Dorlun had a unique ability, and hers allowed her to bend light rays around herself. Now that she was close enough to him, she could bend the light around the child too, but she couldn't share her ability to see through the cloaking effect. To him, it looked like the whole world had gone dark. She wanted to explain this to him, to assure him that he was safer now that she could use her powers to protect him, but before she could speak, she was knocked off her feet by an explosion.

The next thing she knew, she was lying on the ground, still clutching the child in her arms, and looking up at the Saiyan who had been searching for her.

"Well what do we have here?" he asked with a triumphant sneer. "I always knew the Super Saiyan was an alien trick, and here I find an alien supporting Luffa on the battlefield. Let me guess: she's really an android, and your job is to shoot anyone who gets close enough to see through her holographic effects."

"It's going to be all right," Zatte said to the boy. "You're safe as long as you stay close to me." From the way he trembled, she didn't think he believed her, but she wanted to say it anyway.

"Yeah," the Saiyan said. "That explains how she seemed to move so quickly. It's that invisibility effect you use. You make your puppet disappear and reappear, or even project illusions of her to throw us off-balance." He took a step back from her and pointed his short spear at her. "You're quite the little witch, aren't you, One-Eye? Better keep my distance, eh? I bet if I came any closer you'd use some other secret weapon on me."

He was right. In a pinch, Zatte could use her ability to burst blood vessels, but that trick only worked in close quarters. She had dropped her rifle when she ran to get the boy, and her speed and invisibility were useless with him standing right in front of her.

"You can't kill me," Zatte said, her left eye opening wide with conviction. "You'd be better off running away, or begging for mercy."

"Is that right?" he chuckled. The tip of his spear began to glow pale blue as he prepared his attack. "And why is th--?"

He suddenly noticed an intense increase in ki on the battlefield. Zatte felt it too, felt his comrades all scatter as golden balls of fire came streaking out towards them. Zatte had used her abilities to cloud the Saiyan's senses, so that he didn't know what was going on until just now, when it was too late. He tried to dodge the blast that now approached him, but it struck anyway, and when the light faded and the smoke cleared, he looked like he could barely stand. His clothes and hair were singed beyond recognition, and his skin was covered in burns and scorchmarks.

"I'm with her to the end," Zatte said, although she doubted that he could still hear her. "She and I will die together, so you'll never kill me unless I'm by her side."

He still had enough in him to step forward, no longer caring about any secret weapon Zatte might have. As he raised his spear, he suddenly stopped, and looked down at his abdomen to find a fist that had impaled him from behind.

"That was a mistake," Luffa said so quietly that Zatte only heard it through her earpiece. The man tried to turn his spear on Luffa's bloody wrist, acting more on instinct than any sensible plan, but then a golden glow appeared on her arm, which spread out to envelop his entire body. He made a weak, anguished cry of pain, and then he disintegrated like burning guncotton, and leaving only Luffa where he once stood.

"Are you all right?" Luffa asked, sounding more fatigued than she probably meant to. There was blood on her black racerback and yellow pants, and Zatte knew at least some of it was Luffa's own.

Zatte released the child and rose to her feet. "I'm fine," she said. "What about--?"

"Let's... let's get back to the ship," she said, then turning to the boy: "You can find your own way home, right, soldier?"

He was so awestruck that he almost forgot to answer, and Luffa barely waited for him to nod. "Good. Let's go," she said.

*******

[4 August 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Treekul expected her next lesson to be an evaluation of her last assignment. Instead, she entered Rehval's laboratory and found him dressed like he was going to an expensive restaurant instead of presiding over a cult.

"I'd like you to wear this instead," Rehval said. He held up a black dress and presented it to Treekul before she could even step towards him.

"I thought the robes were specially treated to protect us from chemical burns," Treekul asked as she reluctantly accepted Rehval's gift. It was one of the few things she appreciated about her 'apprenticeship'. Her priestess garment was little more than strips of red cloth haphazardly arranged into a dress, but he had to cover her in more modest protective equipment for the lab work.

"Oh, we won't be slaving over the retorts this time," he said with a laugh. "I thought I'd treat you to something special. A little reward for your hard work."

She waited for him to tell her where to change, and when he didn't she simply headed for the bathroom and put on the dress there. She recognized the style as Camelian fashion. The neckline was square and the hem was in a sawtooth pattern. What truly grabbed Treekul's attention was what was attached to the dress. The price tag was still hanging from the inside of the back, and it identified a particular clothing store as its point of origin. She removed it, but folded the tag in with her usual clothes so she could look at it later. With any luck, it would help her figure out where to go whenever she found a way off the planet.

Rehval put his arm around her waist and led her to a room she had never seen before. Gold bullion lay in piles on the floor. A statue of a woman holding a torch-- also gold-- stood on a pedestal along one of the walls. A scarlet cloth hung over the figure's shoulders. Several paintings adorned the walls, including portraits she recognized from her alchemical history textbooks. In the center of the room was a small-but-expensive-looking table, with dinner served for two. A bottle of wine in a gilded bucket of ice served as a centerpiece for the occasion.

"There's not much to see outside of the caverns," he explained. "So when I want to share my aesthetics with someone, I bring them here." He picked up a gold coin and examined it idly while Treekul took it all in. "It doesn't compare to the villa I once had on Pflaume II, but I decorated the place myself, so I suppose it's a bit more personal that way."

"Where did you get all this money?" Treekul asked. "Wait, dumb question. You're an alchemist. You transmuted an equal weight of lead, didn't you?"

"Cadmium, actually," Rehval said. "It's a similar technique, but I find the procedure more sentimental."

"Where would you even spend it?" Treekul asked. "Unless you give this stuff to your followers when they do missions off-world?"

He laughed. "You're such a utilitarian, Treekul. No wonder you like to keep your hair so short. It's nothing but dead cells to you, waste material to be disposed of. It probably never occurs to you that you might look ravishing with the right style. Although I have to admit, I do enjoy the contours of your head... Anyway, the coins, the gold, they're all for show. Once I learned to counterfeit my own cash, I realized how pointless finances really are. But it still looks pretty, and it impresses other people. A big wooden chest stuffed with gold coins has a romantic touch, don't you think? A bauble I can show off to demonstrate my power."

Treekul's gaze lingered on the chest for a while, and Rehval moved on to a large bookshelf along the wall.

"Have a look at this," Rehval said. He handed Treekul a book bound in old leather, and the smell of the pages was enough for her to estimate the age of it. As she flipped through the tome, Rehval stepped behind her and craned his head over her shoulder. Then he placed his hands on either side of her waist.

"What is this?" Treekul asked.

"You're the archaeologist," Rehval said. "You tell me. I thought you would be interested to ply your trade a bit."

She shrugged and examined several pages. "Encryption 40... No, this is 41," Treekul said a few minutes later. "This was definitely encoded by an alchemist. I'd say... five hundred years ago."

"A layman from that era would read that text and think it was nothing more than a cookbook," Rehval said. Treekul didn't like how close his lips were to her ear, but there wasn't anything she could do about it.

"It is a cookbook," Treekul said. She studied another page more closely, then checked the table of contents to see if the rest of the book covered any other topics. It did not. "The encryption is authentic. Only a student of the Topaz school could have coded this, but when you decode the recipes you just get... different recipes. But it's all food."

"Yes, I know," Rehval said. He gestured to the table somewhat haughtily. "I used it to prepare our dinner."

"Where did you get this?" Treekul asked.

"One of my flock retrieved it for me," Rehval said. "I sent him to the Percel Nebula as a trial of courage. I keep it here with my other collections."

"What's so important about a cookbook, boss?" Treekul asked. "Unless there's another layer of encryption to this, it barely qualifies as an antique."

"You miss the point," he said. "The book itself is nearly worthless. What matters is that I sent a man to find it for me, and he braved many dangers to come back with it. I suspected he wasn't entirely devoted to my cause, but once he handed this to me, I knew that no traitor would go to such lengths for me. From that moment on, I knew that he belonged to me, body and soul."

Treekul bit her lower lip at the sound of this. Then Rehval released her, and headed for the table.

"By the way, I examined your potion," he said. "The formulation was nearly flawless. You have a real talent for alchemy, Treekul. Next time I'll have to assign you a formula that's actually useful. But for now, it'll make a fine addition to my collection."

It was then that she noticed the vial on the shelf where the book had come from. It looked exactly the same as the one she had given to him six hours ago, though it was impossible for her to be absolutely sure.

"Oh, I thought you might want to know that I've assigned a different acolyte to see to your personal needs," Rehval said. "I had to send Mero to the front lines, and he was just killed on Zenj I this morning, so I'm afraid he won't be coming back."

She lowered her head and tightened her grip on the book. With her back turned, she was grateful that Rehval couldn't see the look on her face. He was using her, just as surely as he was using everyone else in this mad cult of his. She could play along and try to win his trust, but she would only be sinking herself deeper and deeper into his game. Did he know that she was trying to use Mero for her escape plan, or would he have sent Mero to die in any event?

No, the real question she needed to ask herself was whether any of it mattered at all. Rehval didn't seem to care what she did or how well she did it. He just wanted her here, like some housepet, or the coins he wouldn't spend, or the book he didn't need, or the potions that served no purpose. She had flattered herself by thinking she could resist him, but in reality there was nothing for her to resist. She was like a rodent in a maze. Even if she died trying to oppose him, he would just shrug his shoulders and find someone else to toy with.

That was why he left that tag on her dress. He wanted her to find it, to make her think that he had made a mistake, that there was some slight opening in her prison. It was just a game to him.

"Well then, come sit down and let's eat," he said. "I'd like to tell you more about my collection..."

With a sharp breath, Treekul turned to join him. For now, there was nothing else she could do.

NEXT: GUWAR

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (121/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[22 May, 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space.]

"Personal log, Dr. Topsas recording. Now then, where to begin...? I am still aboard the Emerald Eye in Federation territory. Luffa is long overdue to return for medical attention. What began as a supposedly 'quick' excursion to the Fedender System mutated into a tour across multiple planets that put my patient on the other end of Federation space. Luffa being Luffa, she has taken it upon herself to fight every battle on every planet along her way back to us. I have received some reports from hospitals in the field, and I am bracing myself for the worst.

"During Luffa's absence, I have stocked her star-yacht with medical-stasis fluid, and a healthy supply of regenerative medications. In the worst-case scenario, I will only have to keep her in stasis for two weeks, but I am constantly reminded of the old saying: "If you wish to make God laugh, tell Him your plans." No doubt, His Nine Eyes watch with great amusement as I prepare for Luffa's arrival, as I boldly tell myself that I have everything I need. Though, at the moment, I suspect there are a great many generals and warriors with haughty plans of their own, each producing their own fair share of divine laughter.

"Now that is a dark thought, that a benevolent God should find war to be humorous. I should really find something happier to dwell on in times likes these. Then again, it is my personal log, and I suppose I shouldn't run from a chance to express these kinds of feelings. Very well then. Let us talk about the war.

"I am hardly a military strategist, but it is my opinion that it goes poorly for the Federation. I would not consider any war to go well, but moral objections aside, this conflict seems specially designed to erode the morale of both sides.

"I know little of the so-called 'Jindan cult.' I have been told that Luffa's arch-nemesis, the Saiyan King Rehval III, founded the cult as a way to strengthen his hold over the Saiyan people. Using his arcane skills as an alchemist, along with the pseudonym "Trismegistus", he created a secret method to make Saiyans even stronger than they already are. This worked wonders for his cause, as Saiyans who would never serve a king were all too eager to trade their freedom for power. Now, he sends his followers into Federation space, launching senseless attacks on otherwise peaceful planets. His motives are unclear, though it certainly seems to be a continuation of his grudge against Luffa. As a Super Saiyan, she poses the greatest threat to his dominion over their species.

"What I have heard of these cultists is truly horrifying. Many are cynical warriors who only serve the cult for their own ends. Even so, they fear their master as though he holds their lives in his hands. I suppose that he truly does hold their lives in his hands, for Rehval has the power to withdraw the added strength he gives to his followers. At the slightest sign of defiance, he can drain their power, leaving then weaker than they were to begin with. In some cases, this process can be fatal, as Luffa discovered when Jolok was 'excommunicated' on Planet Quadzityz. Jolok perished, and a sizable piece of the planet very nearly shared his fate.

"The cultists who remain in Rehval's favor do so in a state of constant terror. Some have learned to mask their despair with religious zeal, while others rely on denial. All of them are experienced enough in the ways of war to know their true role in this conflict. They are not holy crusaders serving a higher purpose, as many of them claim. They are merely cannon fodder, a light brigade being sent to die as a mere diversion. Theirs is a simple choice: Die in service to their master, or die in defiance of him.

"I call them a light brigade because every battle fought in this war has resulted in a complete annihilation of Jindan forces. A one hundred percent casualty rate is unthinkable. Even the maddest of tyrants would blanche at such a statistic. It clearly is not sustainable, and yet Rehval continues to send his warriors, confident that he is safe from counterattack in his secret base.

"On the Federation side, a string of impressive victories carries little hope, for each battle leaves considerable death and destruction in its wake. Luffa and the Federation's other defenders have managed to halt the invaders at every turn, but they still manage to kill thousands, destroy important cities and military outposts, and cause ecological damage with their attacks. I think what frustrates the Federation in this hour is that they have no way to take the initiative in this war. They must simply wait for Rehval's forces to reveal themselves, and then absorb whatever losses they must until they can deploy their forces to fight off the invaders. Luffa's health is simply one facet of the bigger picture.

"Perhaps things will change if Luffa can find Rehval himself, but I have little confidence in this. She has already been searching in vain since-- eh?"

"Doctor! Come quickly!"

"What is it? I-- Ninth Eye!"

"Everything happened so fast that we didn't have a chance to fill you in."

"I should imagine. The rendezvous with the transport wasn't supposed to be for another twenty minutes."

"They got a distress call. Luffa convinced them to put her in an escape pod and drop her off so they could answer it. When I got the message, I pushed the engines as hard as they could go."

"Hey, I'm fine... really."

"Shut up, Luffa, and get on the bed."

"Okay, okay. Pushy lady. I guess that's why I married you. Hey, Doc. Sorry I keep... keep missing appointments."

"Please lie still. Would you hold that for me, Ms. Zatte? Please do calm down."

"I just... there's so much blood..."

"Yes, reopening old wounds, no doubt. I thought you were going to stay out of trouble, little mammal."

"So did I, Doc, but there was... was... an attack on Zerkus III and my transport was the only ship in the area."

"Zerkus III? Luffa, I'm so sorry, I, well, I had no idea--!"

"Relax, Dotz. They weren't Jindan cultists, so you probably... ow!... probably couldn't have predicted this. You were looking for Saiyan invasions, and this was a band of Zoons, trying to take advantage of the chaos. Thought they could pick on a planet further away from the fighting, but I made them regret it. Hah! You should have seen the looks on their stupid faces. Doc won't be putting them back together, that's for sure."

"I... I should have been able to predict that... even if they were Zoons, I should have..."

"Doctor, please, is she going to be all right?"

"That is precisely what I want to find out. I will get her stabilized and begin a complete examination. I think it would be prudent to take the ship somewhere safe, before any other enemies happen along."

"I can't just leave her like this--"

"Ms. Zatte, if there were someone else aboard who could handle it, I would not be asking you. With respect to Ms. Dotz's proficiency with the ship's helm controls, I do not believe she has the tactical knowledge to keep the ship out of danger in case of an attack."

"We don't need to run. I don't care how banged up I am. I'm still the Super Saiyan. No one would dare come after... ah... huh... and even if they did, I'd.... I'd...."

"Come on. You can't help her right now. The best thing we can do for her is to get back to the bridge."

"Dotz...? Okay. I know. You're right."

"Hey.... hey, where are they going...?"

"Not far, I assure you. Now, please. Lie still."

"Hey, Doc?"

"Yes?"

"I've gotta... gotta get back out there.... soon..."

"Yes well... I will see what I can do."

*******

[23 May, 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space.]

There was a small desk in the back of the star-yacht's sickbay, and Topsas positioned himself behind it while he spoke to them. As he lacked the necessary anatomy for it, he gave Zatte the chair, and she sat next to the nearest bed, with Luffa in it. Despite Luffa's objections, Zatte held her hand while he gave them an update on Luffa's condition.

He had repaired the most serious injuries, and she was in no immediate danger. One of her lungs had been punctured, and there had been a hairline fracture on her skull, and a few other life-threatening issues. That still left a lot of smaller ones that could worsen if they weren't treated properly. The young women looked at him eagerly, hoping for some quick answer that would allow them to get on with their lives. Being an arachnoid life form, he wasn't completely familiar with humanoid body language, but he had seen their faces on thousands of patients over the years, all silently pleading for him to tell them how long it would take to return their lives to normal. At times, he felt like a judge sentencing a convicted criminal.

"Two months of stasis," he began. "That is my first and most robust recommendation. You will be sedated and kept in a bio-regenerative chamber to promote proper healing. I would take you out of the chamber for an examination, and if all goes as expected, we could begin localized therapies on the damaged tendons."

"Two months?" Luffa gasped.

"In stasis?" Zatte said.

"Let me be clear,that would be a total of sixty days of unconsciousness," Topsas said. "That time need not be consecutive. Many patients do this for a few days at a time, coming out of the chamber to attend to personal affairs, be with their families, and so forth. But since your personal affairs always seem to involve extreme violence, I believe it would be best to keep you under until the treatment is complete. Better sixty days in a row than a hundred or more in and out of the chamber."

"Doc, the whole war could change in sixty days," Luffa said. "If you take me out of circulation that long, it could--"

"Ah-ah! Let me finish that sentence for you. If I were to take you out of 'circulation' for that long, it could prevent your enemies from taking you out of the war permanently. Where would your Federation be then?"

"He's right, Luffa," Zatte said. "If you keep throwing yourself into these battles, you're just going to get worse. You'd be playing right into their hands. You knew it from the beginning."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know," Luffa said. "Look, I'm sorry. To both of you. I said I'd try to pace myself, and I really did try. But these attacks keep on coming, and every time I try to let someone else handle it, people get killed. I can't just stand back and watch... I mean, I know I have to, but..."

She screwed her eyes tightly, as though fighting back tears. When she opened them again, it was clear that she had failed. "I can still do more," she said. "I feel like crap, but I still have so much power that I can tap into. More than enough to make a difference out there. How can I stand by while people out there need that kind of help?"

"Luffa, some would say you have done more than enough already," Topsas said. "No one is asking you to resign from the war altogether. You mustn't feel obligated to risk your own health and safety like this. Not for persons you don't even know."

"Why not? It's what you would do," Luffa said.

"I?" Topsas thought she was joking. "You must have me mistaken with some eight-legged war hero. Perhaps a fantasy creature from one of the tales of your ancestors."

"Your modesty is sickening sometimes, you know that?" she said with a frown. "You remember the Tikosi planet, don't you? Because I sure as hell can't forget it."

"I don't see what that unpleasantness has to do with--"

"You rescued me... you barely knew anything about me, but Keda went to you for help and..."

"Merely keeping tabs on a patient," Topsas said. "I had used a considerable amount of webbing to stitch you back together, and I could hardly let that go to waste--"

As he said this, the gentle tone that represented Luffa's pulse began to speed up. Other readouts of her vital signs began to fluctuate. She began to breathe harder. Zatte tried to calm her down, and Luffa pulled her hand away from hers. And just when Topsas was about to move to check on her, she spoke again.

"I know... we don't talk about that day very much around here," Luffa finally said. "And that's mostly because of me. I was weak, and I have to live with the consequences of that weakness. But when it was all over, I turned into that thing for the first time, and I didn't know if I could turn it off, and you reached out to me, offering to help. I think that might be the bravest thing I've ever seen, and I refuse to listen to you brush it off like it doesn't matter. It matters to me. It matters a lot."

He didn't know how to answer that, and it was clear that she had nothing else to say. At last, it was Zatte who spoke. "Luffa, you've got to listen to Dr. Topsas. You can't go on like this. And if he had a better way, don't you think he would tell us?"

She looked at Zatte, then back at Topsas, and then turned her head away. "How soon can we start?" she grumbled.

"Today, if you wish," Topsas said. "I had the necessary equipment loaded on the ship while you were away."

"Hold on," Zatte said. "If we're doing this, we need to figure out where to take the ship while Luffa's under. We'll be vulnerable in the meantime, and if we set down on an inhabited world, we'll risk getting caught in an invasion."

This was not unexpected from her. Zatte came from a survivalist culture, and her she saw nearly everything as an arrangement of threats and safeguards. She was somewhat extreme in her thinking, but in this case her beliefs all converged on the most sensible course of action. She was certain that Luffa was destine to do good for the universe, which meant that Luffa had to be protected until she was healthy enough to resume that work. "Very well. I suggest you and Ms. Dotz devise up with an itinerary," he said. "I can sedate Luffa as soon as you feel it's safe."

"There's an asteroid field in the Pillimede System," Zatte said to Luffa. "We'll start there, and if Dotz doesn't foresee anyone following us, we can do a silent running for a few weeks." She stood up to leave. "I'll come see you before you go under, okay?"

"All right," Luffa said. "Just... all right. Let's get this over with." As soon as Zatte left sickbay, Luffa leaned back in her bed and let out a despondent sigh.

"I know this is difficult for you," Topsas said.

"It doesn't matter," Luffa said. "It's the only way, right? Sorry I blew up at you. If you don't want to brag about what you've done for me, that's none of my business. I just wish you saw yourself the way I see you."

"Ah, and that is my burden, little mammal," he said. Ambling over the desk, he crossed over to her bedside and began tucking her in. "With eight eyes, I have more than enough to see my flaws, as well as my strengths."

"Huh. Maybe you can see better than me, but the rest of my senses are pretty sharp. Maybe it's a matter of smell."

Eventually she drifted off to sleep, leaving Topsas to consider everything they had discussed. Later, he checked an experiment he was running on some tissue samples, and spent the rest of the afternoon monitoring Luffa's vital signs, while he wondered if he was doing the right thing.

********

[26 May, 233 Before Age. Pillimede Asteroid Belt.]

Zatte was true to her word, and when she was satisfied that the ship would be safely removed from combat, she returned to Luffa's side as Dr. Topsas placed her in the eight-foot-long chamber which would be used for the procedure. The equipment was somewhat bulky, but since there were only four of them on board, Topsas wasn't concerned about the space it took up in sickbay. He simply moved the beds away from one wall and placed the chamber on the deck. Once Luffa was inside, he filled with with a blue liquid commonly referred to as "stasis fluid". This was designed to not only surround the patient with the regenerative drugs he planned to use, but it would also sustain Luffa's metabolism while she lay in the chamber. Once she was sedated, the fluid was allowed to fill her lungs, as it contained oxygen-saturated perfluorocarbons. Topsas then went to the desk, where he began reviewing biofeedback data relayed from the chamber's sensors. Zatte knelt down beside the chamber for the next hour or so, before she finally stood up to leave.

"Sixty days of this," she said aloud.

"I do not wish to give you false hope," Topsas said, "but it is possible that she may fully recover sooner than expected. I will keep you informed, of course."

Zatte looked down at the chamber. "It shouldn't be like this," she said. "She should be out there, fulfilling her destiny. And I should be helping her, not just sitting around waiting for her to come out of this box."

"You are helping her," Topsas said. "It may not be glamorous, or even satisfying, but it is absolutely necessary."

"I'm sorry," Zatte said. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, it's just that... it's not enough. It's not fair."

"I thought your species was averse to risk," he said. "Keda always spoke so highly of being careful."

"I'm not like other Dorluns, Doctor," Zatte said. "And Keda wasn't being careful when she died. She saved my life."

"Of course."

"She never really saw Luffa the way I do, as a xan-nil'Dor, but I like to think that maybe Keda realized it at the very end. Either way, I think Luffa inspired her more than she wanted to admit. Well, Luffa can't do much inspiring from here, I guess."

She excused herself to check on the ship's systems, and Topsas thought he would welcome the silence. He did not. The gentle chirps of the biofeedback readouts only reminded him of the responsibility he now shouldered. And sooner or later, she would return, and the dilemma would follow. He had no consolation he could offer. Part of him wanted to tell her about the test results, but what good would that do? There were far too many unknowns to consider. He thought that Zatte of all people would appreciate that, but no. It seemed Luffa's wife would welcome a bit of risk if it meant getting her back on her feet.

Later, he checked his messages, and found that one of his children had attempted to contact him a few days ago. The terminal on his desk allowed him access to the subspace radio, and Zatte's encryption codes allowed him to send a message with little chance of it being intercepted or traced. Within minutes, he was looking at one of his own kind, though younger, and with a browner coloration.

"Dad," he said.

"Turner. This is something of a surprise," Topsas said. How are you, son?"

"I'll feel a lot better once you're out of Federation Space," Turner said. "There's a war on, or hadn't you noticed?"

"Now that you mention it, I had begun to suspect as much."

"I'm sending a ship to Woshad. I had to pull some strings to get it across the border, but I know some people, and the captain owes me a favor. They'll arrive next week. That should give you time to get to Woshad and get on board."

"Whatever for, son?"

Turner regarded him through the viewscreen and tensed his pedipalps in exasperation. "I'm trying to get you out of there, dad. Please, just get on the ship. Or if you've got some other travel arrangements, we can set up a rendezvous somewhere else. Just tell me when and where and we'll work it out."

"I'm afraid I can't leave at this time," he said. "I have a patient who needs me."

"Luffa," he groaned.

"You know I'm not at liberty to discuss--"

"Oh, come on, dad," Turner said. "It's the Federation, the one she founded, and you haven't stopped talking about that mammal since you gave up your practice on Plutark VII. And you know, for a while I was grateful to her for pulling you away from the Deathmatches, but now you've followed her into something a thousand times worse."

"It is hardly like that at all--"

"Then tell me what it is," Turner insisted. "Tell me why the almighty Federation needs Dr. Topsas to play medic in their warzone."

"She is badly hurt," Topsas explained. "The fighting has been very fierce, and if I do not mend her injuries from time to time, it could jeopardize countless lives."

"And they need you for that? You're telling me that you're the only qualified doctor in the entire Federation who can work on her?"

"I am the best qualified," Topsas countered. "Honestly, very few doctors are familiar at all with Saiyan medicine. And Luffa is a unique specimen among a unique species."

"And that justifies you running around in the middle of a war? Where are you right now?"

"I'd prefer not to answer that at this time," Topsas said. "It's not that I don't trust you, son, but if the enemy were to intercept and decode this message, they might find out--"

"Wonderful. Wonderful," Turner groaned. "So it's a matter of national security, is it? Should I contact the Federation Embassy, then?"

"I doubt they even know of my involvement," Topsas replied. "My presence here is somewhat unofficial. I've been told that my modesty is rather 'sickening'. Perhaps I should have requested a field promotion..."

"Enough! Dad, I've had all I can stand! Listen to me, you're not even a Federation citizen. This isn't your war!"

"She is my patient," Topsas argued.

"So what, then? You'll follow her until she dies?! Until you die?! Do you even care what that means?"

"Turner, please calm down," Topsas pleaded. "I appreciate that you are upset, but--"

"I'm upset because you care more about that Saiyan than your own family! Chelik and Lister called me, you know. They never call, but they heard about this war and no one had heard from you in weeks, and sure enough the last letter you sent was from Federation coordinates, just like before!"

"I assure you, son, I am quite safe here. If you like, I can contact Chelik, Lister, and the others to make certain they understand."

"Oh, they understand just fine, dad," Turner said. "That's why they called me. Because that's how this family works. Someone does something reckless or stupid, and then it's time to call in Turner to fix it. And why not? I've got Turner Polymer Industries, and all the resources that go with it. I can just hire a ship to go into a war zone and fetch you, no trouble at all. It's not like I have any problems of my own to worry about!"

"Son, if you need my help..."

"What I need is my father to stop running off on these ridiculous adventures!" Turner thundered. "I need you to listen to me, just once. Just once, and do the sensible thing." He held up one finger on one of his forelimbs as he said this. Topsas could see the desperation in his eyes very clearly.

"I promise you that I won't take any undue risks, Turner," he said. "I have friends here who are very careful about this sort of thing. But I must ask you to understand. I cannot leave just yet. There is simply too much at stake."

"This is about Nwitt, isn't it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Turner drew a short breath before continuing. "I know it was hard for you. It was hard for all of us. Ninth Eye, she was my sister! I miss her every day. We all do. But ever since she died, you've been getting mixed up with these lost causes, trying to save people that just aren't worth it! And maybe I should admire that. I've tried to, believe me. But I can't. If it's selfish of me, then I'm selfish, but I just want my father to come home and stay alive."

The words bothered him more than he liked to admit. "Son, I cannot just abandon others in their time of need. I swore an oath, and besides, we have a higher duty to people like Luffa. We have too many eyes to look away, and too many hands not to--"

"I know all that!" Turner said, very nearly shouting. "I read the Scriptures too, you know! I know Nwitt's in the heavenly web, and that one day we'll all be there to join her, and that we have to help where we can, but not this, dammit! If she were here, do you really think she'd want you to throw your life away like this?"

"I'll be all right, son," Topsas said. This was the most he had spoken with him in some time. Turner was normally so reserved, so quiet, ever the picture of the successful entrepreneur. And Turner had been angry with him before, but never quite like this. He regretted that he had caused his son such anguish, though he didn't fully understand how. He wished he knew some way to convince him.

"Yeah. Yeah, you'll be fine, probably," Turner muttered. "But what about next time, and the next? One of these days you'll go somewhere that even I can't get you out of. All for some 'Super Saiyan' I've never even met. And when the law of averages finally catches up to you? Well, I guess I'm just supposed to suck it up and pretend it doesn't bother me."

"I'm sorry," was all Topsas knew to say. It didn't seem to be enough. Turner had been an adult for a very long time. All of his children had grown up ages ago. Suddenly, Turner looked very much to him the way he did as a child, inconsolable over something that most would call trivial, but Topsas always knew meant the world to him.

"I don't want you to be sorry," Turner said, his voice now low and weary. "I just want you to get on that transport next week. Just come home, dad. Please. I don't want Luffa to suffer, or anyone else but... please. Just get on the transport."

"Turner, I--"

Turner looked somewhat embarrassed now, either by his outburst, or his pleas, or the emotions that had motivated them. "I have to go," he said. "I... Well, I've already said what I have to say. Just... I have to go."

And with that, he closed the transmission, leaving Dr. Topsas looking at his own reflection in the viewscreen.

*******

[28 May, 233 Before Age. Pillimede Asteroid Belt.]

"Am I doing the right thing?" Dr. Topsas asked. It was a loaded question, kept purposely vague, but he asked it over breakfast, as casually as one might ask for another glass of juice.

Dotz looked at him, and her eyes widened with anxiety. "Er, um... yes? I don't... well..."

She was a humanoid, middle-aged, with brown hair that was well on its way to grey. She claimed to have an ancestor of the Kanassan species, though Topsas had found no physiological evidence to support this, aside from her clairvoyant abilities, which could have been entirely coincidental. Taller and heavier than Luffa and Zatte, Dotz was far meeker, and it seemed that she was always pulling her arms close to herself and stooping her head, as though she was worried about taking up too much space. Her loose muave garments seemed designed to conceal herself further, and she was always adjusting her shawl like it was showing too much of the sides of her face.

"I'm speaking of the treatment I prescribed for Luffa," he explained. "I can't help but wonder if this is the right course of action."

"Well, I'm no doctor," Dotz said. "I'm sure whatever you've decided is the best. I know you've taken very good care of me since I got here."

"No, that's not..." Topsas paused and collected himself before continuing. "You've made some very accurate predictions, from what I understand. About the war."

"Oh, well... I didn't catch those Zoons attacking Zerkus III," Dotz said regretfully. "Luffa said it was okay, but I can't help but feel responsible for what she's going through right now."

"Yes, but the battles you have forseen have all come to pass," Topsas reminded her. "Luffa has spoken very highly of your talents, though I am at a loss to explain them. What I'm wondering is whether you've seen any major combat in the next two months. Something that only Luffa would be able to handle."

"Well, uh, you should really talk to Zatte about that," Dotz said. "There are battles going on all over the Federation border. She's been keeping track of them all, so we'll know where Luffa will be needed when she's ready."

"Yes but--!" Topsas steadied himself. It wasn't Dotz' fault that she wasn't understanding what he needed. She was only trying to be helpful in her own, unassuming way. "I don't wish to trouble Ms. Zatte," he explained. "I have just been having... second thoughts. I was hoping that you might be able to predict whether my decisions will turn out for good or ill."

"Oh, you want a reading," Dotz said. "I'll need to look at your palm for that."

"Fortunately, I am well-supplied in that regard," Topsas said as he extended one of his forward limbs across the table for Dotz to examine. It was supposed to be a joke to lighten the mood. He thought humanoids were easily amused by the notion that he had so many hands and eyes, but Dotz didn't seem to notice what he had said. She simply took his hand and cradled it in her own, staring at it like a jeweler inspecting a diamond. While he waited, Topsas resumed eating with his other hands.

"You'll be going on a journey soon," Dotz said.

"That is rather self-evident," Topsas replied. "As I am on board a starship, and travel is inevitable."

"Mm-hmm. Family trouble. They're upset, but they aren't angry with you, just worried. And you'll be fine. One day they'll see that."

"Yes, well, that was hardly what I needed to--"

"In the end... oh, it looks like your wishes will come true. I wonder what that could mean. It sounds like a very happy way to die."

"Yes, but I have more immediate concerns," Topsas said. "The war. How long will it take for Luffa to recover? How many will die during that time? How many deaths could be prevented. You can see this, can't you?"

Dotz looked up at his face and shook her head. "I can't forsee Luffa's fate at all. I think that's why I missed the Zoon attack, because I was, uh, looking for visions of Saiyans in general. I should have been checking for Federation planets, but there's so many of them that it's hard to follow all of them."

"Are you saying that you can predict certain battles, but not whether Luffa will participate in them personally?"

"Uh, well, yes, that's right. And I can't always get the details right. Luffa's told me that sometimes there's more enemies on a planet than I predicted. Sometimes less. I can usually get the date right, but not always the exact hour. But she likes it that way. It makes things 'interesting', is the way she put it."

"Then you have no idea how long it will take her to recover," Topsas groaned. "Or whether I end up using some other treatment."

"Of course I know that, Doctor," Dotz said innocently. "You said it would take about sixty days, didn't you? And what other treatment could there be?"

"What indeed?" Topsas said. He began scraping sauce from the bottom of his bowl, determined not to look her in the eye.

"Something about meeting Luffa increased my psychic abilities," Dotz said, "but they still have, um, limitations. I learned a long time ago that there's a lot you can predict just by paying attention to the present. And I know you're a good doctor, and that you put your patients' welfare first. I don't need to look into the future to know that you'll do the right thing."

She stood up and started gathering their dishes. "Here, let me get those for you. You probably want to go back to sickbay to check on Luffa. Tell her I said hi. Not that... I mean, she probably wouldn't hear you, right? Unless she can hear people while she's asleep? I don't know all her powers."

Topsas handed off his bowl and steepled some of his fingers. He had just run out of people to talk to.

NEXT: Second Opinion

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (137/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[15 November, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Less then six hours ago, King Rehval III Trismegistus had prevailed against all of his enemies and united the Saiyan race under his rule. An invasion fleet led by the Super Saiyan Luffa had tried and failed to destroy his stronghold on Nagaoka, and he boldly commanded them to choose surrender or death. The Federation ships withdrew, while those of the Saiyan Free Company landed on Nagaoka to join him. For Rehval's followers in the Jindan Cult, this was cause for a great celebration. The festivities were carefully regulated by the priesthood, but the mood was still very joyful within the subterranean compound where they all lived.

Treekul was the only sapient being on the planet who wasn't a Saiyan, and so she didn't understand the importance of this victory until someone else explained it to her. The Saiyans were all very powerful, but their population was small, with current estimates at less than fifty thousand. There were some neutrals scattered throughout the galaxy, but the bulk of their species had been divided between Rehval's cult and Seltiss' Saiyan Free Company. With Seltiss' capitulation, King Rehval could rule the Saiyan people unopposed. And once the Free Companions were formally initiated into the cult, the Jindan potion would bind them to Rehval, body and soul, for all time.

"What about the Super Saiyan?" Treekul had asked. "Did she surrender too?"

"Hah! The minute she saw her fleet break apart, she turned and fled!" That was the way one of the acolytes had explained it. Treekul had asked others, and they all interpreted it the same way: Luffa was no longer a threat. Her power was no match for Rehval's alchemical bond with Planet Nagaoka, and he held too many other planets hostage for her to oppose him anywhere else. In time, he would brand Luffa an outlaw, and it would be a crime for any civilization to assist her in any way. Luffa would have no choice but to roam the stars as an exile until her ship ran out of fuel. Or she could settle down on some uncharted world. Or she could return to Nagaoka and beg to be admitted into the cult, but no one seemed to take that possibility very seriously.

Treekul saw it differently, since she had never intended to join the cult. She had only accompanied a group of Saiyans as a consultant, but Rehval had taken a liking to her and made her an official priestess, and his apprentice in the alchemical arts. Despite these lofty titles, and the privileges that came with them, she knew she was little more than a plaything to him. She had managed to avoid his romantic advances so far, but this was becoming increasingly difficult, and now, it was beginning to seem like there was no point to resisting him. Before, his claims of becoming an invincible ruler of the universe sounded like the ravings of a madman, but now it looked like he had been right all along. She hadn't learned much alchemy from him, but he had shared enough of his secrets to prove that he knew what he was doing. He had real power, and he seemed willing to share a portion of it with her.

Since arriving on Nagaoka, Treekul's only objective had been to escape, but she was finding it harder to want to leave. Where could she go? And even if escape from the cult was possible, what would be waiting for her on the outside? In Rehval's new dominion, all power would flow from the ranks of his followers. As a civilian, she was nothing but a minor archaeologist, roaming the stars for academic glory. Here, she was respected and feared. She had the ear of the most powerful man in the universe, and maybe a little more than just his ear, if she wanted. Would it be worth running away from all of that, just to try to go back to her normal life? A life that might not even be possible under Rehval's New Order?

Despite her dilemma, Treekul still searched for ways to leave the planet. It gave her something to do in her downtime, and knowing more about her surroundings gave her a feeling of control over her predicament. The ongoing celebrations allowed her to trespass into places she normally wouldn't have dared to explore. An overeager cultist actually took her to the surface for the first time. They all wanted to watch the SFC ships that flew in from high orbit, and Treekul was able to sweet talk one of them into bringing her along. Then she excused herself, and scouted around for a while on her own.

Treekul had learned about "the junkyard" some time ago, but never had a chance to visit it until today. Access to the cult's shipyard was nearly impossible for her, but the junkyard was less secure. None of the ships here were spaceworthy. Freighters without engines, shuttles with broken hulls, cruisers without life support. For a time, Treekul had considered the possibility of cobbling something together from these pieces, but she needed a technician from the cult to do the work, and the one she had been grooming for the job had been sent off to die in Rehval's war with the Federation. At least now, she could see the wreckage for herself, even if she wasn't sure what to do with it.

The thought had occurred to her that she might not need a life support system. In recent lessons, Rehval had mentioned ways of keeping a living subject in tact through otherwise fatal conditions. If she could learn those techniques and apply them to her own body, then it might be possible to travel to another planet without air or water. But how long would that take? And if she was willing to wait that long, was it even worth trying to escape at all?

On some level, she had to admit, she liked the challenge of it. When she first met Rehval, she wrote him off as a madman with an inferiority complex. But now that she had seen his plans come to fruition, she began to respect his sanity more. Matching wits with him seemed more like a friendly game than a struggle for survival. As she climbed into the cockpit of the damaged shuttle to study its controls, she considered that the real appeal of her scheme wasn't the escape itself, but the thrill of imagining how Rehval would respond. He wouldn't just let her go. He was far too possessive for that. She pictured a desperate chase, with her trying to stay one step ahead of his minions, only to be recaptured and brought back before him. And then he would lecture her on the futility of escape and order her back to his laboratory to resume her lessons.

A year ago, she would have thought such a game would be terrifying, but now it seemed almost romantic to her. Treekul knew that this should bother her, that it was a sign that life among the cultists had taken a toll on her mental health. But she couldn't find it in herself to care. Too many things made sense on Nagaoka now, and even the longing to escape seemed to be just one more parlor game in Rehval's menagerie.

Satisfied with today's outing, Treekul left the yard and started back. Even the grey clouds in the sky seemed cheerful somehow. Knowing that Rehval had merged his consciousness with the planet had given her a new perspective on it. She wondered if he could see her now, or if he could feel her feet treading across the fields that surrounded the compound. And if he couldn't sense her, how long would it be before he could...?

*******

Much of Rehval's settlement on Nagaoka was a network of underground carvers, some natural, with artificial tunnels branching off from these. This living space resembled a vast catacomb, and the cultists accepted this gloomy dwelling as part of the price for their enhanced power. There were, however, more technologically advanced parts of the complex. The command center overlooking the shipyard looked as though it had been transplanted from some bustling metropolis on a major hubworld. Rehval himself spent little time here, preferring the sanctity of his bedchamber and laboratory, but he occasionally paid visits to the command center, if only to check on things and to remind the crew what they were fighting for. Today, he was giving his daughter a tour.

"Endive is one of my finest Executants," he said, careful to qualify his praise. She stood at attention while he presented her to his guests, and he noticed the slightest wince in her expression when he used the words "one of my finest."

"Right, I'm sure she is," Seltiss said without even looking at her. He didn't need mystic powers or alchemical wisdom to sense the bitterness in her voice. Days earlier, she had believed herself to be a successful leader, commanding a free company of Saiyans, and a reasonably strong warrior in her own right. Now, she had submitted to the inevitability of his rule, and she was surrounded by his followers, whose powers dwarfed her own.

"You can learn a lot from women like Endive," he said. "She resisted me once, too, much like your 'free companions'. But she's turned away from her wickedness, and now she prospers under my new order."

"As if. She looks terrified, dad," Seltiss said to him. Then to Endive, she asked: "When's the last time you got any sleep?"

"Two days ago, my lady," Endive replied, but only after glancing to Rehval first for approval to speak. This was not lost on Seltiss, who snorted with contempt.

"Is this what I'm supposed to learn?" Seltiss asked. "To know my place?"

"That's right," Rehval said. "I know this is a difficult time for you, Seltiss. You grew up believing you would inherit my throne. And now that I've... evolved, I no longer need a successor. Hm. I've never tried to put it into words before. Somehow, 'evolved' seems like too small a term."

Physically, he looked no different than before. Since completing the ritual that connected him to the planet, he decided to dispense with the flowing red robes, and walked around in simple cotton pajamas. No physical connection to the planet's surface was necessary. He only had to stay within its atmosphere to make it work, though he did enjoy the peculiar sensation he felt when he walked barefoot through the caverns. Even the artificial tile of the command center interior was pleasing, as the facility was rooted to the ground, and the geomantic energies conducted through it. Rehval had privately decided that he would never wear shoes again. There was nothing that could hurt him here. He was the planet, and everything and everyone on it belong to him. Even his daughter's insolence seemed cozy and soothing somehow.

Seltiss groaned with embarrassment as he put his hand on her shoulder.

"The point I'm trying to make," Rehval continued, "is that I still need my daughter, even if I don't need an heir. There's a lot you can do for my reign, Seltiss. You and your children, and your children's children..."

She reached for his hand and removed it from her shoulder like it was a dead rat. "That's all you want from me, isn't it?" she asked. "Xibuyas and I are nothing but breeding stock to you. Just like your 'finest Executant' over there, I'll bet."

"Don't be ridiculous," Rehval said. "Your pedigree puts you on a higher level than any Saiyan on this planet. Far above Endive or anyone else. Your offspring will be the provincial governors of my eternal empire."

Seltiss didn't understand, and perhaps she never would, but she had already been extremely useful to him by assembling the Saiyan Free Company in the first place. As his enemy, she had assembled and delivered to him thousands of Saiayans who would have been his fiercest opponents. As he led her on the tour, his priests were processing her followers as they arrived. The ones who still had their tails would need to remove them as a show of loyalty, and then later they would receive the Jindan potion and be formally inducted into the cult. It would have taken decades to gather these loose ends, and Rehval had been willing to spend those decades, but his daughter had completed the task for him in less than a year. And that was Seltiss being his foe. How much more she could do for him as an ally! He could only imagine the sort of wonders her great-grandchildren would be performing for him in a century or two.

"A puppet is still a puppet, dad," Seltiss said. "No matter how many crowns you put on its head. That's what you used to tell me."

"You still think of me as mortal," he said with a laugh. "It's true, you'll forever be second to my glory, but that's how it is for every temporal king. Even the grandest of rulers know better than to envy the heavens."

"Like you, dad?" Seltiss asked.

He laughed again. "It's good to have you back at my side, Seltiss. I look forward to many more of these spirited debates. What about you, Xibuyas? Don't tell me you're going to be a sore loser about all this."

The young Saiyan had remained quietly by Seltiss' side from the moment she disembarked from her command ship. Rehval had considered Luffa's son to be a useful catspaw, until the boy's failure at Pflaume City. Meeting Rehval again seemed to remind the boy of his shortcomings, and so he had been very pensive during the tour.

"I only want to know when Luffa dies," Xibuyas said. "You say you have the power. Why did allow her to leave the system?"

"Because I'm in no particular hurry with her," Rehval said. "Not anymore. With your group now added to my own, I can afford to take my time. The galaxy will surrender to me whether she interferes or not. Eventually, she'll die in isolation, or she'll make some mad attempt to go down in a blaze of glory. Personally, I hope she comes back groveling for my forgiveness, but it doesn't make much difference anymore. Now then, I think we've seen enough of the command center, so let's move on to the aqueducts, where--"

"Master!" cried one of the cultists sitting at a tactical station. "There's a ship entering the system! It's headed for the planet!"

"Hm? That's odd. Maybe they were part of the Federation fleet and got lost," Rehval said. "Oh well."

"You aren't going to scramble your fighters to intercept it?" Xibuyas asked.

"Whatever for?" Rehval asked. "Or did you already forget how easily I repelled the last attack on this planet? Dozens of warships, including your own, Xibuyas. They couldn't scratch Nagaoka. What can one cruiser possibly do?"

"Even so," Seltiss said, "it would be foolish to, like, ignore it--"

He sighed. "I get it. I really do. You were both always so stubborn, even as children. You still haven't accepted what I've become, so you probe for weaknesses, vulnerabilities that you can exploit later. 'Did you notice that? He doesn't intercept ships that stray into his system. We can use that somehow...' Is that what this is? Fine."

He turned to Endive, who somehow stood even more rigidly at attention than before. "Go," he said. "Handle this."

"At once!" Endive said with an eager smile. She turned to the tactical station and asked for a full report. Rehval spared a moment to admire the fit of Endive's Executant armor. He almost regretted poisoning her father all those years ago. How it would have pained him to see her like this, a devoted soldier of the Saiyan King.

"I'm picking up only one life sign on board," the soldier announced. "It's a Saiyan."

"There, you see?" Rehval said to his guests. "Another lost soul seeking to join my fellowship. You thought he was a threat, but once he's initiated in our fellowship, he'll only make me stronger. Now that Guwar has told the outside universe where to find me, I guess I'll just have to get used to Saiyans seeking me out directly from now on--"

"Master," Endive said. "The ship isn't slowing down! If it hits the field at this speed, the pilot will be killed!"

"Curious," Rehval said. "Now what could be the point of such a stunt? My power shields the planet from any bombardment, whether by conventional arms or ki blasts."

"That energy," Xibuyas suddenly said. "Do you sense it? That's no Saiyan... it's her."

"What are you talking about?" Rehval said, more annoyed than concerned.

"The ship has collided with the Jindan field surrounding the planet, Master," Endive announced. By now she had simply shoved the soldier away from the tactical station and had taken his seat for herself.

"Yes, I just felt the collision," Rehval said. "Let's not forget whose field it is, after all."

"Forgive me, Blessed One," Endive said, "but... I show something has broken through!"

Rehval was about to ask what it was, and then the ground shook beneath their feet.

"It's Luffa," Xibuyas said in a low voice. "She's returned."

He was right. Rehval could sense the ki now. Earlier, when the fleet's attack had failed, Luffa had managed to penetrate the clouds of Nagaoka with a focused ki blast. Her attack had done no damage, and in theory a vessel could have slipped through the hole she had briefly opened up, but there was no point in sending a single ship to attack the planet, so he hadn't worried about it.

Rehval still wasn't worried, though he was perplexed.

"It doesn't make any sense," Seltiss said, apparently reaching the same conclusion. "She couldn't put a dent in that field when she had the whole alliance at her back, so why come alone?"

"She knew she couldn't disrupt the entire field, so she passed through it," Rehval said. "The ship was just to get her close enough to it so she could force her way through. Interesting."

He could feel the impact Luffa had made. Miles away, a grassy field had been reduced to a large crater. The damage would have been much worse than that, but Rehval's power over Nagaoka had absorbed the brunt of the attack. At best, an enemy could only hope to damage the biosphere of Nagaoka, but nothing below the surface.

"Why would she come here? It's insane!" Seltiss said. "She can't fight all of us at once, and with her ship destroyed, she's given up her only means of escape!"

"She didn't come here to escape," Rehval said. "No, I think young Luffa came here to die. How very noble. She's so humiliated by the last defeat that she's chosen to end her life in a hopeless battle rather than live with the shame. Endive, let's do what we can to grant Luffa's wish."

"Yes, Master," Endive said. "A hundred of our warriors should be more than enough to defeat her."

"I agree," Rehval said. "Well? Does this satisfy you, Xibuyas?"

"Let me go with them, Your Majesty" he pleaded. "I want to see her death with my own eyes!"

"Ah-ah!" Rehval said. "You already had your chance on Planet Pflaume, remember? I think denying you here would be good for your character, Xibuyas. Besides, you need to learn the importance of delegation. You're going to be a very important provincial governor for me some day, and it would be inefficient for you to handle all the busywork personally."

The boy fell silent, and Rehval decided to pause their tour while they waited for the hundred to report in. He ordered a meal to be served in the main conference room, so his family and the S.F.C. generals could watch the crew of the command center as they followed the battle. They were barely into the main course when Endive relayed the report from the field.

"I sent my troops to the impact site as ordered," she said. "They searched, but found no one... dead or alive."

"What?" Rehval gasped.

"Hah!" Xibuyas laughed. "Just like a woman! The coward ran away!"

"Be quiet," Rehval snapped. He hadn't been taking this seriously, but Luffa had his attention now. "She didn't maroon herself behind enemy lines just to hide. She's up to something, but what? She can't be planning to attack our stronghold. She'd be walking into tens of thousands of cultists instead of a mere hundred. And there's no other strategic objectives on the planet."

He couldn't sense Luffa's ki either. His bond with the planet had enabled him to sense things all over Nagaoka, but the footsteps of a single woman were too subtle. It was like expecting to notice motes of dust landing on one's skin. His ki senses had increased dramatically, however. And yet, he found nothing, until suddenly, for only a moment...!

A split second later, they heard an explosion outside. One of the other crewmen reported the damage. "It's the spaceport," he called out. Someone's taken one of the ships!"

They could all sense her now. Earlier, Luffa's ki had seemed to vanish, but now she was acting with her full strength. This time, Rehval was provoked enough to want to see for himself what was going on. He rushed to the door, and levitated himself to an altitude that offered a view of the shipyard. For a moment, he saw the hijacked cruiser floating over the the other ships, firing its guns as it circled the yard.

And then, just as his followers began to converge on the location, the cruiser exploded in a ball of yellow fire. Even at this distance, he could hear laughter. That maddening laugh.

Luffa only attacked once, firing a thin crimson beam into the mass of warriors that converged on her position. Then, with blinding speed, she turned and fled, retreating into the thick grey clouds like a bolt of golden lightning.

Rehval made his way to the shipyard, where he bade his followers to stand down. Soon enough, Endive, Seltiss, and Xibuyas joined them. The entire hardstand was in flames, with secondary explosions going off as the heat ruptured volatile components in the wreckage.

"Only one casualty," Endive reported. "Her beam went right through his heart."

"What is she doing?" Xibuyas asked. "First she destroys her own ship, and now all of these! What good does it do her?"

"Look!" Seltiss called out. She was pointing at a section of the hardstand that hadn't been burned. "She left... a message."

Rehval had already spotted it as he descended, but he let the others see it for themselves. It looked like Luffa had carved it out of the pavement by hand.

NO ONE LEAVES

"She means to destroy us all," Rehval said.

"But she can't destroy the planet," Seltiss said. "You already proved that. Your power makes it impervious to that sort of damage."

"Yes," Rehval said. "But I lack the speed and offensive power to catch her. She's seems to think she can pick us off, one by one if she has to."

"Impossible," Endive said. "She may be powerful, but she can't possibly hold out long enough to win a war of attrition."

"I agree," Rehval said. "Either way, it looks like we're going to find out. But it's brilliant, in a way. By infiltrating this planet, she's removed my earthen avatars from the equation. I placed them on planets all over the galaxy, so that if she dared to interfere with my plans, I could destroy a few billion people to punish her. Only now, I don't dare carry out that threat, because I need to focus my energies here. I could use my avatars here, of course. Summoning a few dozen on Nagaokan soil would be child's play for me now, but they're much too slow. She can simply outrun them, and attack me where I'm vulnerable. So, if nothing else, she's saved the galaxy... for the time being, at least."

"I can send out search teams," Endive suggested. "We can track her down--"

"No, my dear, spreading out our forces will only play into her hands," he said. "We need to approach this very carefully. Luffa's brilliant, yes, but this still smacks of desperation. She has nowhere else to go, and I have already proven myself as the conqueror of the universe. This planet and its people are all extensions of my power. She won't last long. For all her power, she's just one woman."

NEXT: One Against All

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (109/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

[21 February, 233 Before Age.   Interstellar Space.]

"Six Saiyans all at once?    You must be slowing down in your old age, little mammal.    I remember a time when you defeated fifty without breaking a sweat."

In the sickbay of Luffa's star-yacht, Dr. Topsas applied bandages made of his own webbing to Luffa's wounds.   On occasion, he would hold out a section of his silk with two hands and smear a medicated gel onto one side with a third hand.   Four other limbs supported the weight of his massive arachnoid body.    He used the eighth to hold one of Luffa's hands as he worked.    

"They were tougher than usual, that's all," Luffa said.    "And I knew you'd be along to patch me up, so I didn't bother blocking their hits."

"Yes, of course," Topsas said as he wrapped up Luffa's right shoulder.   "You meant to shred your forearm like this.  Forgive me.  It can be difficult for my untrained eyes to tell the difference.    What seems to be a careless mistake is actually a masterful forgery."

"Ow!" Luffa said.   While she had been watching him tend to her arm, one of his other limbs had stuck something into her thigh.  

"A regenerative serum," Topsas explained, "to help repair that tendon in your leg.  Most Saiyan patients might have caught me before I managed to inject them with it, but you acted as if you were completely unaware.   It pleases me to see how much you trust me, Luffa."

"Look, I know you two missed each other," said Zatte, who had taken a seat on one of the other examination tables in the sickbay.   "But could you cut the banter for a few minutes and tell me what's going on?"

"Some clown named Trismegistus is powering up Saiyans and sending them after me," Luffa said.   "If Dotz hadn't foreseen their attack on Planet Lubegev, they would have wrecked the place and waited for me to hear about it and walk into their trap."

The revelation startled Zatte enough to make her forget her earlier impatience.    "You mean they wanted to fight you?" Zatte asked.    "That's crazy."

"I think you just defined the Saiyan species, Ms. Zatte," Topsas remarked.  

"They weren't that crazy," Luffa said.   "Their combined power gave me some trouble.   Plus, they were very well-trained for fighting as a group.    Pretty sure some of them used to serve in the Royal military.   These guys would have been pretty talented, even before Trismegistus got ahold of them.   With his Jindan treatments, they were pretty impressive.   If they hadn't lost their nerve in the end, I might have been in some real danger."

"Define 'danger'," Zatte said.  

Luffa looked at her and smiled.   "They might have killed me."

"Yes, but let us remember that they did not kill you," Topsas said as he waved a diagnostic scanner across Luffa's back.   "You prevailed over difficult odds, as we have all grown accustomed to seeing.  Then you returned to the ship, where you will make a full recovery, much to the relief of your long-suffering wife."

"Thank you, doctor," Zatte said.  

"Hey, I told you I was okay when I came on board," Luffa said.  

Zatte pointed at Topsas.   "I just like to hear it from him, all right?" she said.   She looked at Dotz, who was lying in one of the beds, with an intravenous drip in her left arm.   "I'm sorry, I should be thanking you.  If Luffa hadn't known about this in advance, it could have turned out much worse."

"Oh, uh... well, I'm afraid I wasn't much help, ma'am," Dotz said.    "I only forecast one Saiyan, not six, and I had no idea they'd be so powerful.   If anything, I should be apologizing..."

"Oh, come on!" Luffa shouted.  "You guys are acting like I lost back there.   I had my back against the wall and I still kicked their asses!   It was amazing, at least until the end when one of them turned coward.    Isn't anyone happy for me?"

"In a word, no," Topsas said.  

"Hell no," Zatte said.

"I still feel guilty about it," Dotz added.

"Well, too bad," Luffa harrumphed, "because this won't be the end of it.   I may not have precognition powers like Dotz, but I've fought enough battles to know this Trismegistus isn't finished yet."

"What are you saying?" Zatte asked.

Luffa hobbled over to a chair and took a seat.   With most patients, Topsas might have questioned the point of getting up from an exam table to sit in a chair only a few paces away, but he had learned to pick his battles carefully where Luffa was concerned.    

"Those guys who jumped me on Lubegev had the same upgrade as Jolok, the Saiyan who put Dotz in a coma and tried to take me out on Quadzityz," she explained.   "When Jolok and I fought, he told me he was defying orders by running off to fight me, but he did it anyway because he thought he could catch me off guard and take all the glory for himself."

"...And?" Topsas asked.

Luffa rolled her eyes and groaned.   "Think about it!" she said.   "If there were only seven of these jacked-up Saiyans, why wait to deploy them?  Why draw it out, long enough for one of them to lose patience and run off to go into business for himself?  The reason is that there's a lot more than seven.  Trismegistus is trying to build an army of Saiyans with these powers.  These six were supposed to be the first wave.    A test, to see how well I'd do against them.  But it would take a while to move that many pieces into place.   Jolok couldn't wait that long, which is why he tried to start things early."  

"The first wave?" Zatte asked.   "Luffa, you make it sound like this is the start of a full-scale offensive!"

"Hah!    You always say the sweetest things," Luffa said.   "To be honest, I have no idea how many Saiyans are in league with Trismegistus.   Once those six fail to report in, he'll know they weren't enough to beat me.  So next time he'll send eight, or ten!  If I beat them, he'll send more, assuming he has more to send.   But I think he's thought that far ahead.    One thing's for sure.   There's plenty of Saiyans out there who'd love a chance to take me down, even if they have to gang up on me to pull it off."

"And how, little mammal, do you expect to defeat these enemies when you're still recuperating from the last battle?" Topsas asked.

"By doing the one thing those bastards would never expect," Luffa said as she rose out of her chair.    For a moment, she seemed to strike a heroic pose, like a wounded warrior preparing for an epic last stand.    Then, she shuffled over to the bed next to Dotz and lay down in it, pulling the covers over herself.

"I'm sorry, but what would that be?" Zatte asked.  

"Following my doctor's orders!" Luffa exclaimed.   "My body will get stronger with every battle I fight.   As long as I stay one step ahead of my injuries, I ought to be able to keep up with Trismegistus' attacks.   He thinks I'll run myself ragged trying to stop his goons, but I'll tackle them on my terms, not his.   And then, when he's finally out of options, he'll have to give me what I want."

"What's that?" Dotz asked.  

"King Rehval," Luffa said with a satisfied smirk.   "If that bastard's not already mixed up with Trismegistus, then it's only a matter of time before he will be.   They need each other.  Trismegistus has a way to increase a Saiyan's power, so if he really wants the most out of it, he'll have to use it on the strongest Saiyan he can find, and that's still Rehval."

"What if you're wrong?" Zatte asked.  

"Then I'll deal with it," Luffa said.   "For now, all I can do is fight these guys with everything I've got."

"But what if that isn't enough?!" Zatte shouted.  "What if they're too much for you?"

"Take it easy, would you?" Luffa said.   "We can always ask for a second opinion."

Dr. Topsas cleared his throat before speaking.   "I have little experience with such matters," he said, "but if you sincerely wish to hear my advice, then I would recommend--"

"Not you, Doc," Luffa said.  "Dotz here is a fortune teller.   She may have gotten the details wrong, but she knew when and where the Saiyan attack would happen.  I bet she could predict the next one if we give her a chance."

"I'm not worried about where the Saiyans will strike next," Zatte said.   "What I want to know is whether you'll still be alive when it's over!"

"Well that's easy enough," Luffa said.   "Dotz can read my fortune, can't you, Dotz?"

Dotz was taking a drink of water when Luffa said this, and nearly spit it out.   "I, uh... I'm not sure if I should get involved in this..." she said.    "I wouldn't want to cause any hard feelings between the two of you."

"Don't swear it, Dotz," Luffa said.  She reached across the space between their beds and offered her hand.    "Zatte and I have been through tougher situations than this.   And I'm a lot stronger now than I've ever been before."

"That isn't the point," Zatte said, putting her hands on her hips.   "Dammit, you always get this way when you smell a worthy adversary."

"It's great, isn't it?" Luffa replied as Dotz began examining her open palm.    "I feel like a kid again, hunting dinosaurs in the wild.   I'd probably have trouble keeping still, but Doc wants me to rest, so it's sound tactical advice."

"I should really get to the bridge," Zatte said.  

"What's wrong?" Luffa asked.   "You don't want to know my future?"

"Oh, I'm sure you live to be a hundred, and you conquer the whole galaxy or something," Zatte grumbled.  

"I'm sorry," Dotz said, "but I'm having some trouble."

"What is it?" Topsas asked.    With a speed that belied his bulk, he moved to Dotz's bedside and checked the readings on medical sensors.  

"No, I'm fine, doctor," she said.    "What I meant was that I can't seem to read Luffa's palm."

"What is it?" Luffa asked.   "Bad news?"

"No, it's..." Dotz swallowed hard as she tried to find the right words.    "Well, it just... stops.    Unless I'm doing something very wrong, Luffa, you have no future."

"How very  melodramatic," Topsas said.    

"Cool," Luffa said with an impressed smile.  

"Wh-what?!" Zatte asked.  

Dotz looked at Luffa's hand very carefully as she ran her fingers across her palm.    "I've never seen anything like this before," she said apologetically.  "I've been telling fortunes for thirty years, and I've never..."

"Hey, don't worry about it," Luffa said.    "You're not fully recovered from your run-in with Jolok, so maybe that's got something to do with it.   Besides, my species makes its own destiny.   It'd be kind of boring to know how the movie ends, right, Zatte?"

But Zatte didn't answer.    When Luffa looked up, she saw her running out of the sickbay, sobbing.

*******

[21 February, 233 Before Age.  Interstellar Space.]

Cardune's entire life had been leading up to this moment.    He had been so blind in his youth, wasting his talents on pointless battles, siezing just enough plunder to break even.    Marriage, family, success, they had all been hollow pursuits, but he did not regret those years, for even these had been part of the plan that had been laid out for his life.  

He loved Trismegistus, more dearly than he had loved anything before.  The Thrice-Blessed One had transformed Cardune, perfecting him into his true self.    In his former ignorance, Cardune had come to him seeking strength of the body, but Trismegistus had given him so much more than that.     It made so much sense now.     What good was physical might without harmony of the spirit?   Only by balancing the mercurial and sulfurous essences in his soul could Cardune achieve his true potential.    This was Jindan, the power that turned an ordinary Saiyan into the Universal Reagent.    Through Cardune and others like him, Trismegistus would transform the entire universe.    

There were difficulties, to be sure.    No path worth following would be easy, least of all the Sacred Way.   Cardune had sacrificed much in exchange for his newfound power.   Trismegistus had taught him that this was the way of alchemy.    It was best to forget what he had given up, so as to fully embrace what he had received.    This was easier said than done.    Often, Cardune caught himself thinking about his partner, and their daughter and son.    Mostly, he wondered what had become of them after he was admitted into the cult.    Once, he thought he had seen his daughter serving as an attendant to one of the high priests.    It was hard not to be relieved, even proud, but this wouldn't do.    Cardune had given up his family, so it was no longer his place to worry for their safety, or to take comfort in their prosperity.    

This was why his joints ached from time to time.   His emotional indiscretions interfered with his spiritual balance, which diminished the effectiveness of the Jindan formula in his body.    Meditation helped.     While it never seemed to improve his condition, it at least distracted himself from the pain, and kept him from dwelling on things he couldn't control.    Like the clock on the wall of his quarters.  

Trismegistus was an alchemist, possessed of the secrets of creation itself.    For the Thrice-Blessed, remaking the universe was no different from a child mixing vinegar and baking soda.    He never called himself a god, though somehow this seemed to make him seem even more noble, as if he were laying silent claim to something even higher than divinity.    The Saiyans who belonged to his flock would become his Holy Reagent, the means by which he would effect his great work, but the kinetics of this act were a complete mystery.    Mere acolytes like Cardune could not hope to understand.   He was a glob of clay wondering when the potter would begin.  

Cardune could only act on what he knew, which were the orders he was issued.    He was given command of a starship, and he and his crew traveled to a particular location and held their position until the time was right.    Their supplies were limited, as Cardune was expected to lead his crew in ritual fasting at certain intervals.    Cardune found the hunger useful for diverting his attention from his own problems, but the other officers relied on their assigned consorts to distract themselves from their empty stomachs.  

Sex was held in high regard within the Jindan cult.    Trismegistus taught his followers that it was a means of balancing bodily humors.  Through repeated physical intimacy, they could rid themselves of those essences they did not need, and replenish essences which they lacked.    Ever a prudish species, the Saiyans found this polyamorous philosophy deeply disturbing, but this was part of the price for the Jindan power they all shared.    Trismegistus had arranged a complex system to determine who was to sleep with whom.    Higher ranking members were given greater freedom of choice in this, while the lower members had none.    As the commander of his ship, Cardune could have anyone else on board whenever he wished, but he preferred to decline this privilege.     Whenever he took a consort for the night, it only reminded him of the husband he gave up to join the cult, and so the entire exercise was self-defeating.    He only partook as often as he did in order to set a good example for his crew.    

Mostly, he spent his off-duty hours waiting in his quarters, letting his hunger and restlessness argue with his faith.    His orders were to hold his position in deep space, maintaining radio silence and a cloaking field to avoid any possible detection.    For three weeks, he and his crew had been cut off from the rest of the universe, waiting for a sign to move out.   If it pleased Trismegistus, they would die here, waiting for his sign, and the ship would serve as their cosmic tomb.   At times, Cardune wondered if their master had forgotten them.    He forced himself to repeat the mantras he used during meditation, in an effort to refocus his devotion.

And then, at last, the sign came.    Cardune hadn't known what to expect.   There was no subspace radio transmission, no voice speaking to him in his mind.    Just a feeling in the pit of his stomach, and a sudden urge to find his spear.    All of Trismegistus' followers were issued spears.   Along with the Jindan power and the Mindworm, which guarded them from telepathic assault, the spears were said to be the third of three blessings Trismegistus bestowed upon his flock.   Cardune was never told what the spear was for, just that it was important.    Now, as he found it leaned against the wall of his quarters, he began to appreciate its importance.    

The head of the spear was shaped like the barbed point of a harpoon, and now it glowed a dull red color, though Cardune could feel no heat when he touched it.    Instead, he felt an almost instinctive understanding that this was the moment he and his crew had been waiting for.   Trismegistus had cast them into the darkness, and now he was summoning them back.   And suddenly, the mental anguish Cardune had endured these past three weeks seemed to melt away.   Gazing at the spear, he felt there was nothing he could not do, and he knew that his entire crew now shared the same feeling.    

With a newfound sense of purpose, he stepped out of his quarters and headed for his post to order his ship into action.    

*******

[21 February, 233 Before Age.    Interstellar Space.]

On the bridge of Luffa's star-yacht, Zatte had finished crying, and somewhat awkwardly tried to get on with the work of checking the ship's systems.      She could sense Luffa approaching the entrance to the bridge.    For those who could sense ki, it was hard not to notice Luffa's presence on board.    While she had the chance, Zatte turned away from the door and wiped her eyes one last time, in an effort to look a little less pathetic.  

"Hey," Luffa said as she stepped through the doorway.   "I would have been here sooner, but Doc thought I should give you some space."

"It's okay," Zatte said.   "I'm fine, really."

"I'm sorry," Luffa said.   "Whatever it is I've done, I'm sorry."

"No, you're not," Zatte said, finally turning to face her.   "You can't be sorry for what you are.   I'm sorry.   I lost it back there.    I let you down."

"What are you talking about?" Luffa asked.  

Zatte turned and took her hands into her own.    "You want to fight," she said.   "It reminds me of the day the colony fell.    You were covered in Tikosi blood, and we both expected to die there.   You always told me how much you enjoyed that battle, and how impressed you were with me."

"I guess it is a lot like that," Luffa said.  "I probably got a little too excited about this Trismegistus thing."

"I know you love this sort of thing," Zatte said.    "But it scares me.    It always has.  Fighting is one thing, but against the kind of odds we faced on Dorlu Prime?   I know that's a dream come true for you.  Most days I can handle that.    Today, I slipped.   She said you had 'no future’ and I just couldn't..."

She pulled Luffa close and wrapped her arms around her tightly.   "I want you to have a future!" she said.    "I want to be there with you, and fight for your cause, and I'll burn for you if I have to, but I want to grow old with you too!   I want one of us to die in the arms of the other, and if it's me, then I want you to leave my corpse behind wherever it happens to fall."

"Hey, I already promised you that at our wedding," Luffa said.  "Dorlun funeral, all the way.  I won't let your death get in the way of the living."  

"And if you die first, then... then..."

"Of course," Luffa said, returning her embrace.   "If we make it that long, that's what we'll do.    But there's no guarantees.  We won't make it there unless we fight for it.    Every step of the way."

"You're right," Zatte said.   "It's just... it's hard sometimes."

"It's okay," Luffa said.   "It really is.   You're allowed to be weak sometimes.    Weakness is part of getting stronger.   Look at me.   I took a real beating on Lubegev, and now I've got to stay in bed and heal up."

"Can you really beat them?" Zatte asked.    

"I think so," Luffa said.  "But I won't know until I try.    That's why I have no future, Zattie.    The only future a Saiyan can have is the one she takes.   It's whatever I make for myself."

They held each other for a time, and then an alert sounded from one of the bridge consoles.    Luffa pulled away from Zatte to check it out.   "It's a recorded message from the Federation Council," she said as she read the display.   "What the hell do they want?"

She tapped the console to begin playing the message, and the main viewscreen displayed the image of a bald man with brown skin and a red military dress uniform.  He smiled somewhat insincerely as he spoke into whatever recording device he was using.    "Madam Federatrix," he said.  

"Ryba Booth," Luffa said aloud, though she knew he couldn't hear her.  There was a somewhat one-sided rivalry between them.    Booth commanded a military dictatorship before Luffa forced him to co-found the Federation along with three of his adversaries.   He longed for greater power over the Federation, to extend his personal rule to other worlds beyond his home planet of Despye, but Luffa's influence over the Federation made this impossible.   She was too popular to outpolitick, and too powerful to overthrow.   His only chance was to wait for her to fail on the battlefield, and then he could use his command over the Federation starfleet to usurp her position.   The smile on his face suggested that he felt closer to that outcome than he had been in some time.

"If you are receiving this message, it is because I am unable to reach you directly.   The Federation is under attack by an enemy fleet.   I have deployed our own fleet to intercept the invaders, but intelligence indicates that many of them are Saiyans.  Should any of them manage to land on an inhabited world, my ships may be incapable of dislodging them."  

Luffa and Zatte exchanged concerned looks.   "If these are anything like the Saiyans you fought on Lubegev--" Zatte began.

"I know," Luffa said.    "Booth may have no idea what he's dealing with..."

"I'm including tactical charts with information on the planets most likely to be invaded.   I believe the Saiyans will attempt to concentrate their forces on Gudgid III, so I've--"  there was a disruption in the message, as the audio briefly devolved into static-- "hold the line for now.  The Ninth Wing may be vulnerable, but--"  Static again.   "--ommend you join the battle at coordinates J58 by 126."

There was an interruption in the playback of the message.   The image of Booth became distorted, and though he appeared to be speaking, the audio was gone.   Luffa looked over to the navigator station, but Zatte had already there, plotting a course.    "It'll take us four hours to get there," she said.

"Then we'd better hope Booth can last until then," Luffa said.  

"Luffa, you're hurt," Zatte said.

"I know," she said.   "I'll have to get creative when we get there.   Let's take a look at his charts..."

"Luffa, you said you would rest," Zatte reminded her.

"I just want to take a look," Luffa said, "and then I'll go back to-- This... this can't be right!"

"What's wrong?" Zatte asked.  

Luffa tapped a few keys on the console and put the charts on the main veiwer.   "Look at this," she said.  "Booth's showing Saiyan activity in at least two dozen star systems."

"Two dozen?   But what about Gudgid III?" Zatte asked.  

"I mean, they could converge on Gudgid," Luffa said.   "Normally, that would make sense.   Harass the border, keep the defenders spread out while they try to chase you down, and then concentrate your forces on a planet worth sacking.  Booth's analysis is sound, or it would be if these were garden variety Saiyans.    But if we're talking about Saiyans as strong as the ones I just fought... If these are more of those Saiyans jumped up with this magic power, and if they're all working for Trismegistus, then they could do more than just sack one planet and run for it.  They could hold an entire sector or two if they play their cards right.   It might take weeks to clear them all out!"

As Zatte looked at her wife's face, she saw her expression grow increasingly concerned.   There could be no doubt now.  In four hours, Luffa would fight again.  And again. Perhaps she would prevail, but at what cost?  This was the question Zatte wanted to ask, but she didn't want to break down into tears again, and so she asked another question instead.

"Even if we do clear them out, what'll be left of the Federation when it's over?"    

NEXT: Fight Fire With Fire.

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (102/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous Chapters conveniently available here.

[30 January, 233 Before Age.   Planet Server’la.]

Over the next six weeks, Guwar had learned a great deal about his new partners, but very little about the object of their search.

Treekul, the only non-Saiyan in the group, was an alchemical historian.    She knew a few techniques for preparing mystical elixirs and so on, but her main focus of study was the lore.    Unlike the sciences of chemistry and biology, which made progress through rigorous documentation and peer review, alchemy was a secret discipline, with reclusive masters teaching on a select handful of students.   When they recorded their work at all, it was always done in an esoteric style.   Simple instructions were expressed as complex riddles.   Ingredients were given symbolic codenames which would be meaningless to the uninitiated.   Typically, an alchemical scroll promised much: immortality, mastery over living things, the power to transmute lead into gold.   But once you actually sat down and read them, they delivered very little: Vague sermons, arcane philosophical tracts, and references to other works which were conveniently unavailable.   Guwar had heard about this sort of thing, and always assumed it was an enormous bluff, no different from the way he would use the Saiyans' reputation to make himself seem more powerful than he actually was.  

And yet, Treekul seemed to be able to make sense of it all, at least to a certain extent.   She had shown him a few documents she had worked on in the past, and explained how she was able to filter the "important stuff" from the "crap", as she put it.  Part of the alchemical tradition was to deliberately add a lot of pointless fluff to one's writings, in order to disguise the true wisdom and to trick the unworthy into dismissing their sacred knowledge as nonsense.    "Once you've studied enough of their writings," she had told him, "you can start to decode it, and see what they were really talking about."

Treekul hailed from the Planet Clytemnestra, whose people had pale purple skin and dark green hair.   Treekul preferred to keep her own hair as short as possible, as she said it helped her focus on her research.    "Don't ask me why, but that extra quarter inch of growth on my head just makes me nuts," she had said one day while he saw her applying a trimmer to her scalp.   As a result, Guwar noticed that she tended to leave tiny green clippings behind everywhere she went.  

Endive, one of the Saiyans, was usually the one flying their ship.   She was a smuggler by trade, though she liked to find a good battle between jobs, much the same way that Guwar did when his mathematics skills weren't needed.   Like Guwar, she had been forced to scale back her recreational fighting ever since Luffa had begun cracking down on Saiyan activity.  

"I tried getting as far from Federation space as I could," she once told him.   "I found a nice little civil war on Rofos III.    They had mechs, triffles, and all sorts of interesting weapons.    I was in heaven... for all of two weeks, and then she showed up and ruined the whole thing.  That was when I made up my mind.    One way or another, I refuse to be pushed around again."

Endive never had much to say, but Guwar enjoyed hearing it, if only for the chance to admire her looks.   She had woven the end of her black hair in to a short, thick braid, which hung between her shoulder blades like a piece of halyard rope from a sailing ship.   The bridge of her nose was at a steep angle, which he found aesthetically pleasing, especially whenever she frowned.  Luckily for him, she frowned quite often, since the ship's navigation system wasn't quite up to her personal standards.    She and Treekul had recruited him into this group by tricking him into thinking he would get to sleep with one or both of them.   Watching Endive handle the controls of the ship, he often wished that there was a way to take her up on it.

As for Lesseri, he had dealt with her in the past, though he had always known her to be a ruthless, indomitable warrior.   For years he had envied her superior strength and financial success.   For example, the ship they now traveled in was hardly luxurious, but it was fast and well-armed, and comfortably quartered six people, which made it far nicer than the broken down one-seater Guwar had left behind on Paxul's Planet.   From afar, he had always thought Lesseri to be the model of what a Saiyan should be: a warrior who could go anywhere and do anything she pleased, because she had the might to enforce her own will.  

Now that he had lived with her for a while, and seen her ship from the inside, he realized they had more in common than either of them probably cared to admit.   Lesseri thought of herself as a weakling compared to other Saiyans, just as he saw himself.  This surprised Guwar at first, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made.    There was always a bigger fish in the pond.  He had always thought Lesseri retreated from untenable situations because she was so cold and calculating, but the truth was that she was afraid of dying, just like everyone else.   She was farther ahead of him in the search for greater power, but the gap between them was insignificant compared to how far they each had to go.    In spite of their past enmity, Guwar was beginning to like her.   When their quest led to searching a tomb on an abandoned planet, he was happy to join her.

"I killed my mother," Lesseri told him as she punched her way through the wall that surrounded the necropolis.  They had been talking about family, and this was where the conversation had led.  

"Why?" Guwar asked.

"You know those procedures where you can have your embryos removed from your womb and gestated outside of your body?"

"No, I had no idea you could do that," Guwar said.   He had no interest in procreation, and since he lacked a uterus, he cared very little what others did with theirs.

Lesseri shook her head.   "Men," she groaned.   "A lot of Saiyan women do it when they get pregnant.    Back when Planet Saiya was still up and running, they practically ordered people to do it."

"Okay," Guwar said.  "What about it?"

"My mother did it through a private company, only she never came back to get me when it was time.    Growing up, it kind of pissed me off.  My sister, she used to make excuses.   She thought mom must have died in battle, or she couldn't pay the bills or something.    When I got older, I tracked her down.   Wasn't even that hard.   She wasn't even trying to hide."

"Must have been a hell of a fight," Guwar said as he doubled checked their coordinates.    

"Nah, I checked her out first before I confronted her.   She was too close to me in power.   I might have won, but there was no guarantee, and I wanted a guarantee.   That was how we both ended up training with Luffa."

Guwar nearly dropped his scanning device.   "You trained with Luffa?" he asked.  

"If you can call it that," Lesseri said.   "Mostly it was Luffa and her alien wife scolding us like we were naughty children.   The leader of the group, guy named Zaperc, he tried to start this 'movement' where we'd learn to become Super Saiyans ourselves.   My mother joined on, and so did I.    Didn't want to risk her learning anything that might make her stronger and protect her from my revenge.    Anyway, Luffa found out about Zaperc's group and took over the whole thing.   Not that there was much to take over, but I guess she didn't like the idea of trash like us taking her name in vain.  Anyway, I waited until the right moment, then I rigged a bomb on my mother's ship.    As soon as things went pear-shaped, I knew she'd try to run for it, and sure enough--"

Lesseri clapped her hands together for effect.    "Boom.  Luffa didn't like it, but she didn't care much for my mother either, so she just sort of stood there while I left."

"What did your sister think?" Guwar asked.

"Beats me," Lesseri said.   "I haven't seen her in years.   She might be dead.    Hold on, I think this is it."

Near the center of the necropolis was a large mausoleum that looked like a great stone chrysalis.   There were small alien creatures clinging to its surface, and the glossy surface of their chitinous shells made the entire structure seem almost alive.

"Yeah, I think this is the one we want.   Let me take some readings before we smash our way in.   Wouldn't want to break anything important."

"So what happened after that?" Guwar asked.

"After what?" Lesseri replied.

"After you killed your mother," Guwar said.   "I've never gotten revenge for anything before.  I wondered what it was like."

"To be honest, it felt kind of empty," Lesseri said.  "I didn't regret it, but I'd spent my whole life on that one goal, and then it was over.    Mostly, it stuck in my craw that I wasn't strong enough to kill the old bag directly.   Luffa had no business giving me her opinion on it, but she was right.   It would have been more satisfying to fight her instead of blowing her up.    Mom didn't deserve the honor, but at least if I'd beaten her fairly, I would have had something to be proud of."

"I suppose so," Guwar said.

"That was when I started looking for ways to get stronger.   I've had enough of people pushing me around like I'm some bystander.    Being a Saiyan used to mean something, but lately it just feels like it makes you a patsy for King Rehval, or Luffa, or anyone else who happens to hit the genetic lottery.    I wanted to make my own opportunity."

"And that was how you met Treekul?" Guwar asked.

"Exactly," Lesseri said.    "I've heard rumors about Saiyans using a technique called 'Jindan' to increase their power.    I know we haven't told you much about it, Guwar, but that's only because we don't know much more than you do.   It's not easy finding a Saiyan these days, so if there's anything to the rumors, these jacked up Saiyans are staying out of sight."

"If that's true," Guwar reasoned, "then maybe this Jindan thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.   The Saiyans who use Jindan still have to hide from Luffa just like the rest of us."

"Could be," Lesseri said, "but it could also mean that they don't want the competition finding out about their secret.    If everyone could use it--whatever 'it' is--then we'd all be right back where we started.    And even if it doesn't make you as strong as a Super Saiyan, it could still be a big gain.   I don't know about you, but I'll take whatever I can get."

"I'm picking up some unusual readings," Guwar said.   "But nothing Saiyan."

Lesseri checked her own scanner and then compared her results to his.    "Yeah, Treekul was afraid of something like this.    We'll have to take a few precautions before we break into this thing.   Give me a hand, will you?"

*******

Thousands of years ago,  a brilliant scholar was interred in a mausoleum.   Over time, his students were buried nearby, and as the scholar's wisdom of the natural world grew into legend, a superstition arose that those who were buried near his tomb would pass on a blessing to their descendants.   Centuries passed, and the scholar came to be revered as a god, whose worshipers believed would one day rise from the dead and rule over the planet.   It was said that those buried in the necropolis that surrounded his tomb would be revived as his holy servants.

Before the planet's intelligent life forms vanished, their history included several wars fought over this sacred ground.    Conquerors thought that by controlling the necropolis, they could convince others of their supremacy.    New religions attempted to assimilate the necropolis's mythical status into their own theologies.   During more enlightened times, scientists would attempt to study the graves to learn the truth behind the legends.   But the scholar's mausoleum was never successfully breached, for when the ancient one was having it built, he planned to take his greatest secrets with him into the hereafter.    To ensure that graverobbers would not plunder his great writings, he treated the interior of his tomb with a concoction of his own making.   It would make the stone heal itself when broken.   In case this was not enough to dissuade intruders, he prepared a guardian, an unliving creature that would become active when fresh air entered the tomb.   Its creator had named it Qursss, and it drew strength from the very earth surrounding the mausoleum.   Once unleashed, it would not rest until it had destroyed all living things in the vicinity.   When its grisly task was finished, it would lumber back into the tomb, which would then reseal itself.  

And so, when the first breeze of fresh air entered the tomb in over fifteen centuries, Qursss stirred and reawakened to its strange un-life.   A blue flame ignited from a pile of ashes, and then it grew, transmuting into a vaguely humanoid form cast in minerals and the bones of its past victims.   Without hesitation, it rushed towards the source of the air current, and wailed its fearsome warning to any who could hear.  

"Woe betide you, graverobbers!   Know that you have summoned Qursss the Unquenchable, and for daring to defile my master's resting place, you must pay with your lives!"

It saw light from the fissure in the stone, and then the crack exploded into an opening large enough for a person to enter.  

"Yeah, I see it now," Guwar said as he peeked inside to look at Qursss.    "We'd better lure the thing outside before we proceed."

Qursss roared as it chased after Guwar.    "Mortal fool!" it shouted.  "You have sealed your doom this day!   Qursss shall pursue you to the ends of the--"

It paused at the threshhold of the hole in the mausoleum.  Guwar stood just outside, waiting patiently for Qursss to follow him.    The only thing missing from this scene was the ground.  Guwar was standing in midair.    

"Looks like you were right," Guwar said.    "This creature's immortal, but it doesn't seem to be able to fly."

Beneath them, Qursss could hear a second intruder, and its primitive intellect slowly realized that she was carrying the entire mausoleum in her arms.     "Aw, well, if he’s too shy to step outside," Lesseri said, "I guess I'll have to give him some encouragement!"

The whole structure began to shake, and Qursss lost its balance.   Unable to react in time, it tumbled forward, and as it fell, it realized that it was thousands of feet in the air.  

It wanted to threaten its enemies, to warn them that such trickery would avail them nothing, since Qursss would follow them and destroy them for as long as it took to restore its master's tomb.    But it had already noticed the ocean below, and Qursss knew that its master had designed it to sleep in the absence of fresh air.    No, there could be no reprisal.  Qursss would sink like a stone once it hit the water, and Qursss would fall dormant for a very long time.   Perhaps one day, when the oceans themselves boiled away, Qursss would stir once more, but that would not be for a very long time.   There was absolutely nothing it could do.    The enemy had won.    

Its final thought, as its monstrous body shattered upon the water's surface, was to wonder why its master had never thought to give it wings.

*******

[31 January, 233 Before Age.    Interstellar Space.]

"What I don't understand," Guwar asked Treekul, "is how you found that planet in the first place.    It was uncharted, and it looked like no one had been there in centuries."

"Geomantic extrapolation," Treekul replied as she ran her finger over the text of the parchment the Saiyans had removed from the mausoleum.    "You're sure this was the only scroll you found in the tomb, right?"

"Positive," Guwar said.    "What was that you said a second ago?"

She sat up from her bunk and finally looked at him.   "Geomancy," she said.   "In my line of work, you can't rely on the people who write these things to actually help you by citing sources.    Sometimes you have to use other methods to connect the dots.    That planet you and Lesseri went to, I don't know what it's called, or the name of the guy who wrote this scroll, but it's written in the same language as the last four scrolls I studied, and uses symbols and notations he would have learned from an older master known as 'Server'.   Not his real name, by the way.  None of these guys ever used their real name."

"You... you really haven't answered my question," Guwar said.  

She pointed to a disc-shaped object hanging from the opposite wall of her cabin.    It appeared to be made of wood, and hundreds of tiny characters and sigils were written upon its surface.   "That's a geomantic compass," she said.    "Normally you use it for aligning ki energies with planetary fields, but a specialist can use it to locate objects bound by special connections.   Server's other disciples had most of the information I needed, but not all of it, so I calibrated my compass with information from the scrolls I had, and used that to point me in the general direction of the one that I didn't.   It's taken a lot of course corrections to narrow it down, but considering how long the planet's been lost, I think ten days was a pretty decent turnaround."

Guwar was beginning to understand how some of his clients felt whenever he explained the more complicated aspects of probability theory.   "Look," he said, "I just want to understand how this gets us any closer to Jindan.   Does that scroll mention it?   Does that mean it was invented thousands of years ago?"

"No, of course not," Treekul said.    "You have to understand how this works, Guwar.    All we really know about Jindan-- and I'm using the word 'know' very loosely-- is that it makes Saiyans stronger somehow, and it just happens to share the name of one of the terms used for the golden elixir, a central concept of alchemical thought.    Until we find out more, our best chance is to dig through old writings, and hopefully find scrolls and records that were used to invent this particular Jindan.    We do that, and we'll have something resembling a lead to what you three are after."

He made a long sigh when he heard this.   "It all sounds pretty hopeless," he said.  

She smiled and lay back down on her bunk.   "Trust me, Guwar, I've been digging up old secrets my whole career.   If there's something to be found, I'll find it.    It just takes time.  And the occasional defiling of an ancient burial ground, but you and Lesseri didn't seem to have much trouble with that at all.   Even if it takes us a year to hit paydirt, wouldn't you say it was worth it?"

Guwar supposed he couldn't argue with that.   "I guess I'll leave you to your work then," he said as he rose from her chair and headed for the door.   "I could use something to eat anyway."

"Hey, drop by anytime," she said.  "It's good to bounce ideas off of you.   Oh, could you toss me my trimmer before you go?   My scalp's getting a little itchy."

*******

[9 February, 233 Before Age.   Thalos I.]

Days later, with nowhere in particular to go, the Saiyans decided to land on a planet to indulge in some hunting and gathering.    Guwar preferred gathering, as it made more sense from an efficiency standpoint.   The ship's sensors could tell him where to go to find abundant supplies of edible plants, and he could collect those much more quickly than he could chase down a comparable mass of wild animals.   Most Saiyans didn't look at it that way, and so when Lesseri and Endive chose to hunt large reptiles on the western continent, he wasn't surprised.

What did surprise him was when Endive approached him later, while he was bundling his first batch of roots and berries for the cargo hold.   They weren't supposed to meet up for another hour.

"I thought you were hunting," he said.  

"I decided to see if you needed any help," she said.    "Lesseri has things well in hand."

"She usually does," Guwar said.   "But I think I've covered my end pretty well."

"What do you think of our little band so far, Guwar?" she asked.    

He finished weaving a simple rope and began wrapping it around a stack of starchy plants he had found in a marsh.    "I'm used to working alone," he said, "but so far I'm impressed with the operation.   All of you are professional, sensible.   Treekul's a bit flaky, but she's an alien, so I won't hold it against her."

"Have you considered what will happen when we succeed, Guwar?" Endive asked.    She took a seat on one of the cargo crates and put her palms on her knees.  

"We'll all get stronger," he said.  "Much stronger, with any luck.   I, for one, plan to be able to write my own ticket."

"And what about Lesseri?" she asked.   "She's stronger than both of us right now.   It stands to reason that if our quest succeeds, she stands to become even stronger still."

"That makes sense to me," Guwar said slowly.   "What's your point, Endive?"

"Merely that we should be considering our own separate interests at this stage of the partnership," she replied.   "Our working theory is that there are already Saiyans out there using Jindan in secret.   They will not be pleased to see three more added to their number.   For every Saiyan that learns the secret, it depreciates in value."

"And if we were talking about treasure," Guwar surmised, "sooner or later we'd have to decide if it would be better to split it two ways instead of three."

"I see this as no different, Guwar," Endive said.    "The other Saiyans may try to stop us from reaching our goal.   But they may find two Saiyans easier to accept into their domain than three.   And if they happen to be fairly weak Saiyans--like you and me-- well, we'd hardly be much of a threat to their plans, now would we?"

"What exactly are you suggesting, Endive?" he asked.   He tried to keep his tone neutral, hoping not to tip his hand.   At the moment, he saw no compelling reason to turn against Lesseri, but he didn't want to appear to reject the idea, just in case she was on to something.

"For the moment, nothing at all," she said briskly.   "I simply wanted to share my appraisal of the situation.   When the time comes to make a decision, there may not be a chance to confer privately, Guwar.  So I thought we should discuss certain... contingencies in advance."

He was about to ask her what contingencies she had in mind, when the communicators on their wrists began to chirp.   It was Treekul.  She had found something.

*******

The closest thing Lesseri's ship had to a meeting area was the mess hall situated between the cabins and the cockpit.  Treekul presented her findings on a small display screen normally used for entertainment purposes.  Guwar found her delivery surprisingly polished and scholarly, considering that she was giving it in her pajamas, which bore flecks of green hair clippings from the last three times she trimmed her scalp.  

"I know a lot of what I just said went over your heads," she said as she finished explaining how she arrived at her conclusions.   "I just want to give you a bird's eye view of what I've done, so you won't think this I just pulled all of this out of my ear.  

"We've trusted you this far, Treekul," Lesseri said.   "And I think we get the general idea."

Lesseri had put her feet up on the table and crossed her ankles.   Endive was busy eating some raw meat from her hunting, while Guwar sat on the table itself.   He had some question about Treekul's data, but he decided to save them for when he could speak with her in private.   He suspected that the others would do the same.  

"All right, then here's the bottom line," Treekul said as she tapped the screen to advance to the next image.   The good news is that my theory was correct, and we've been on the right track.    We've established a line of spagyrist masters who studied techniques for increasing physical attributes.  We're talking about simple stuff, like healing minor injuries, or improving concentration, but each record we've found states that the masters were looking ahead to a refinement of the research.   A 'golden elixir', or a perfection of what they had begun to explore.  They called that ideal experiment 'jindan', which means whoever invented what we're looking for must have based his research upon their earlier work."

"But the scroll we just found was never used by anyone," Lesseri said.   "That tomb hadn't been touched in centuries, and the wax seal on the scroll itself was unbroken."

"Right, but it did give me more information to plug into my calculations," Treekul said.    That means my geomantic measurements will be more precise from here on out, and there's a lot less guesswork about where to look next."  She tapped the star chart on the monitor, causing it to zoom in on a single star system.   "Turns out we'll have to go to the Quadzityz System after all," she said.

"That whole sector is a war zone," Endive said.  

"Fine by me," Lesseri said with a smile.   "With all the fighting, we can slip in, take what we need, and no one will notice we were there.   We might even score some plunder if we have time."

"Yes, that does sound quite pleasant," Endive replied,  "but that isn't my point.  A stray bombardment could destroy our objective before we even have a chance to reach it."

"Not to mention the mercenaries working that sector," Guwar added.   "Saiyans or not, some of them are bound to be stronger than us.    If we're not careful, we could find ourselves outmatched.   Then we'd be the ones getting plundered."

"It's worse than you think," Treekul said.    "I monitored the war reports from that sector, just to get some idea of what we'd be getting into.    Turns out the fighting has escalated even more than we knew.   Someone brought slorgs into the conflict."

"Slorgs!" Endive said with a gasp.    "Then it's only a matter of time before Luffa gets involved!  She'd never tolerate a slorg infestation anywhere near the Federation border."

"And that brings me to the 'Bad News' part of my presentation," Treekul said with a sigh.   She tapped the screen one more time, bringing up an image from a news periodical.   The photo accompanying the article showed a Saiyan with glowing yellow hair and tail, holding a Quadzity armored troop transport over her head.    Terrified soldiers were fleeing from her as she smashed the vehicle into a large boulder.

"Luffa's not just going to get involved on Quadziityz," Treekul said.    "She's already there."

NEXT: The War Against War