Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Garrulous and Gritless ❯ I, 22: Gohan ( Chapter 22 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: ShiningMoon 
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action / Comedy / Drama / Psychological / Romance | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 02.05.2011 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.4K | Visits: 212 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action / Comedy / Drama / Psychological / Romance | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 02.05.2011 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.4K | Visits: 212 | Status: Completed
I really wish I knew where Raditz went.
Sometimes I sit and meditate like Piccolo does, except, I'm stretching my senses all the way around the world to try to find Raditz's ki. Who knows, maybe Piccolo is doing the same thing. He seems just a tiny bit worried about it, I think because he thinks that Raditz would have helped us in the fight against the Saiyans. But, Kami says that every week his death feels closer, and there's no Raditz anywhere, and everyone is starting to get a little bit scared.
Yamcha says, "Good riddance," but it's like he doesn't train as hard as before. He keeps trying to talk to Bulma but he says she's "holding out for that sonnuvabitch" and I think normally that would make him angrier but it's like he's running out of energy. Maybe it's because Raditz isn't around for him to be mad at.
Dad doesn't seem very bothered about it, but I guess he didn't like Raditz much to start with. He says it doesn't matter because if he ever comes back he can just beat him up anyway and...I don't know. It makes me kind of sad, because Raditz isn't that bad or nothing, I mean, he's bad, but he hasn't really done that much bad stuff lately and, I always thought Dad was the kind of guy who forgave people for stuff. I asked Tenshinhan, because aside from Piccolo, he's the guy around here who seems the least likely to get super mad at me for saying anything about Raditz, if that's true, my thought about Dad normally being nice even to mean people if they seem like they might not be a hundred percent mean. Tenshinhan said, yeah, Dad always was the kinda guy who forgave people if it seemed like they had a hope of getting better. He said once he was on the wrong side, too. It seems like everybody here used to be bad, maybe besides Kuririn, because nobody's ever said anything about him, but...I don't get it. Maybe it's different because Raditz killed Dad. But...I don't think...I don't know. Maybe he would do it again. But I feel like maybe...maybe if I was around...maybe he wouldn't. I don't think he likes seeing me sad, or maybe it's that he's afraid of seeing me angry.
But I guess it doesn't matter really, because Raditz isn't here right now and nobody knows where he is. Bulma is trying to build a scouter to contact him. She said it's almost done; she said there's some parts she has to make by hand, or something. I even helped, a little bit, and she taught me some stuff about how to build things, and even explained about electricity and physics and stuff. Maybe I should go over there more often...it would be like studying like I used to do before I had to put all my time into studying fighting, but more fun. Maybe after all this.
Piccolo...keeps getting quieter and quieter. He always asks me if I've been practicing the Makankosappo, which I always do every single day. Some days, he's really angry and goes and spars everybody. He can beat everybody but my dad, and even then usually they're both looking pretty bad by the end. When he gets mad, it's really scary. Maybe that's not so different from how I was, the one time I remember it happening, when Dad died. Everybody says it's scary. It scares me, too. Especially lately, especially with all these rocks in my belly that get hot like lava. Dad says, my power is inside my emotions. When I think too much about people dying, about these Saiyans showing up and blowing up the forest, and blowing up the cities, and all the awful things Raditz says Saiyans do, my insides get hot. Even Raditz is scared of these guys. He says, if they find out that he actually kind of cares about Bulma (which he only told me if I swore I wouldn't say it to anybody else, though I don't know why he would think that I would tell the Saiyans that), then they'll surely do something awful to her, 'cause he says since they're stronger than him, they like to bother him however they can. He says mostly it's the one called Vegeta, 'cause Nappa mainly just follows. He says, Nappa would be a "proper Saiyan" if it weren't for Vegeta, whatever that means.
He told me a lot of things about being a Saiyan and it was really interesting but I don't think I could ever do it. It sounded...awful. I hope one day he's not like that, that he doesn't like that stuff, but, I don't know if it'll ever happen. It seems like he's as stubborn about about being a Saiyan as my dad is about not being a Saiyan. The difference is, at least Raditz is right.
Once not that long ago, when I was meditating, I was thinking about how Piccolo is so sure he's gonna die, even now, even after all the training we did. My mind started wandering and I imagined what's gonna happen when the Saiyans show up, and then this vision played through my head, of Piccolo dying, and it was...terrible. I felt like I fell asleep, I felt like I woke up...then fell asleep again...and when I snapped back to it, I felt like my insides were all singed. I don't know if I ever really fell asleep. Maybe I was awake the whole time. It was so blurry. All that was left was me being so mad about the Saiyans killing Piccolo.
If Raditz was still here, I woulda asked him about it. I don't know why, but it just feels like it's a Saiyan thing. Actually, I do know why. It's...a little...weird, though.
Like I said, when I felt like I was myself again, after that whole thing, my insides felt burnt. Everything hurt, like my blood was rushing through too fast, or like inside it was one of those scary-looking chemicals in Bulma's lab. Like I just finished a sparring match, but also like I was poisoned, somehow. I thought maybe it was just because I was so mad, but even after I wasn't mad, the feeling kept going, and whenever I think of it again, of that whole thing, and most especially of Piccolo dying, everything starts hurting real bad and I have to stop. I think I should ask Bulma about it, maybe she's the next-best thing to asking Raditz, maybe she can look at my blood and see if there's anything weird with it.
But I just keep feeling like I got up way too bad by my own insides, and I think it's a Saiyan thing because—because I think—it's something about my tail. It hurts more than anything else and I don't think I want to try to put up with it anymore. I know Raditz wouldn't like it, and, I don't really like it either, but...
"Dad," I say, and walk up to him, and he looks up in the middle of taking a big bite of fish.
"What is it, Gohan?" he says, with little bits of food flying out of his mouth. Gee, am I glad Mom taught me how to be nice while I eat. "Are you feeling better? Wanna spar?"
I take a big, deep breath. I've just gotta say it. "Cut my tail off."
I shoulda asked Piccolo, I...but... "Why?" he asks, but he looks happy. I know that he used to like having a tail, but I guess now he's just looking for ways to be less like Raditz, less like a Saiyan. I guess Raditz left him feeling pretty sour about the whole thing.
"Did you ever feel like there was something burning away all your insides?" I ask him. Right. This is why I came up to him to talk about this. Maybe, maybe this one time he'll think about how he's a Saiyan, if it's going to help me. "Or like your stomach is full of big heavy coals?"
The way his eyebrows come up in the middle says I'm probably not in luck. "No," he says. "Not really, no."
"Like, what if you imagine Mom dying, or me, or, or Kuririn, or..." I hope maybe if he does it then and there it'll happen and he'll know what I mean.
"I don't do that," he says, like he's kind of mad. "I don't like to think about things like that, Gohan."
"Me either," I say. Maybe this was a bad idea. "But sometimes I do on accident."
"What does this have to do with your tail?" he says.
"I think it's my tail that makes my insides feel really awful after I get all mad," I say. "It hasn't always been like that, but, you know..."
"Hm," he says. "Well, okay. It's probably for the best anyway, you know? That you get it cut off, I mean. Your tail is your weak spot."
That's not true, because Raditz and I were trying to figure out how I could train my tail so that it wouldn't hurt if somebody pulled on it and stuff. But, I'm not gonna say that, of course. So I just nod.
"All right, well, this won't be too bad," he says, grabbing 'round the bottom of my tail. "It never hurt me too much, at least."
"Yeah," I say. "It'll be better than how I feel now, anyway, sooner or later. I hope."
"Here goes," he says, and yank, just like that, he's pulled it off. I yelp, but forget about the pain as my dad throws the tail to the ground and blasts it. "There," he looks at me. "That was okay, right? Feel any better?"
"Not yet," I say, 'cause the pain from having it yanked out starts coming back. Maybe it is better to have it gone now, though. After all, Raditz said that he had a "ghost-tail." I read up about it, one of the times my insides left me all tired. When you lose part of your body and you can still feel it they call it a phantom limb, I guess. I guess if I had my tail for as long as he did, and it got pulled off, I'd have the same problem. It doesn't sound very nice... "But I hope I will soon."
"Let's spar as soon as you do," he says, and smiles at me with that big smile that he has when he's proud of me. "You've gotten really strong and I don't think we ever really went all-out against each other."
Actually, I don't really like that thought much, 'cause...he's really strong, and, a real real fight is still really scary to me. I know Piccolo wishes I could change that part of me, but I don't know if I ever will. My dad is the opposite...he's not happy until everybody's fighting their very hardest against him and it feels like a real battle. Not that I know what a real battle feels like...but I'm kind of glad I don't. "Okay," I say. I have to, with that big smile of his. I never used to make him smile like that, not that he didn't like me, you know. But I don't think he really understands what studying is. Maybe I was boring to him, when all I did was study because Mom didn't want to let him train me.
"I'm going to go visit Bulma," I say.
"What for?" he asks. I think he's still a little mad at Bulma, not like the way he's mad at Raditz, but, like she let him down I guess. I don't know...I guess maybe it was her fault, but...we don't even know what happened. All I saw was Raditz standing there, underneath the dragon, and then he was gone, and then it was gone.
I don't know if I really want to tell him that I wanna go there so I can see if she can tell me anything else about Saiyans, like if Raditz said anything to her about the burning, or anything like that, or maybe if she got a hold of him if she finished the scouter. "I'm just going to have her look and make sure my body isn't messed up," I say. That's pretty close, right? I don't like lying, and especially to my dad, but it seems like I keep having to stop myself from saying things. "'Cause it sure feels that way, you know?"
"Sure," he says, and I guess he seems okay with that. "Can you get some heavier weights while you're there? I'm almost used to these. Er, if she puts them in one of those capsule things you should be able to carry them, right?"
"Yeah," I say. "I might be a while, 'cause last time she told me about how electricity works and it was really cool so I wanna ask her more."
"Okay," my dad tilts his head a little, like he doesn't get it. And, well, maybe he doesn't. I take off in a hurry, rubbing at the spot where my tail was. I better get there fast, in case I was right, in case cutting off my tail gets rid of the burnt feeling, because if it does then what if Bulma can't test anything? Somehow, I think she'd be upset too. She always wants to learn stuff, just like me. Thinking that maybe my answer to what's wrong is right around the corner makes me speed up even more, and I'm there in no time. Bulma is standing outside, like she was waiting for me all along—and it looks like she has something important to say.
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Sometimes I sit and meditate like Piccolo does, except, I'm stretching my senses all the way around the world to try to find Raditz's ki. Who knows, maybe Piccolo is doing the same thing. He seems just a tiny bit worried about it, I think because he thinks that Raditz would have helped us in the fight against the Saiyans. But, Kami says that every week his death feels closer, and there's no Raditz anywhere, and everyone is starting to get a little bit scared.
Yamcha says, "Good riddance," but it's like he doesn't train as hard as before. He keeps trying to talk to Bulma but he says she's "holding out for that sonnuvabitch" and I think normally that would make him angrier but it's like he's running out of energy. Maybe it's because Raditz isn't around for him to be mad at.
Dad doesn't seem very bothered about it, but I guess he didn't like Raditz much to start with. He says it doesn't matter because if he ever comes back he can just beat him up anyway and...I don't know. It makes me kind of sad, because Raditz isn't that bad or nothing, I mean, he's bad, but he hasn't really done that much bad stuff lately and, I always thought Dad was the kind of guy who forgave people for stuff. I asked Tenshinhan, because aside from Piccolo, he's the guy around here who seems the least likely to get super mad at me for saying anything about Raditz, if that's true, my thought about Dad normally being nice even to mean people if they seem like they might not be a hundred percent mean. Tenshinhan said, yeah, Dad always was the kinda guy who forgave people if it seemed like they had a hope of getting better. He said once he was on the wrong side, too. It seems like everybody here used to be bad, maybe besides Kuririn, because nobody's ever said anything about him, but...I don't get it. Maybe it's different because Raditz killed Dad. But...I don't think...I don't know. Maybe he would do it again. But I feel like maybe...maybe if I was around...maybe he wouldn't. I don't think he likes seeing me sad, or maybe it's that he's afraid of seeing me angry.
But I guess it doesn't matter really, because Raditz isn't here right now and nobody knows where he is. Bulma is trying to build a scouter to contact him. She said it's almost done; she said there's some parts she has to make by hand, or something. I even helped, a little bit, and she taught me some stuff about how to build things, and even explained about electricity and physics and stuff. Maybe I should go over there more often...it would be like studying like I used to do before I had to put all my time into studying fighting, but more fun. Maybe after all this.
Piccolo...keeps getting quieter and quieter. He always asks me if I've been practicing the Makankosappo, which I always do every single day. Some days, he's really angry and goes and spars everybody. He can beat everybody but my dad, and even then usually they're both looking pretty bad by the end. When he gets mad, it's really scary. Maybe that's not so different from how I was, the one time I remember it happening, when Dad died. Everybody says it's scary. It scares me, too. Especially lately, especially with all these rocks in my belly that get hot like lava. Dad says, my power is inside my emotions. When I think too much about people dying, about these Saiyans showing up and blowing up the forest, and blowing up the cities, and all the awful things Raditz says Saiyans do, my insides get hot. Even Raditz is scared of these guys. He says, if they find out that he actually kind of cares about Bulma (which he only told me if I swore I wouldn't say it to anybody else, though I don't know why he would think that I would tell the Saiyans that), then they'll surely do something awful to her, 'cause he says since they're stronger than him, they like to bother him however they can. He says mostly it's the one called Vegeta, 'cause Nappa mainly just follows. He says, Nappa would be a "proper Saiyan" if it weren't for Vegeta, whatever that means.
He told me a lot of things about being a Saiyan and it was really interesting but I don't think I could ever do it. It sounded...awful. I hope one day he's not like that, that he doesn't like that stuff, but, I don't know if it'll ever happen. It seems like he's as stubborn about about being a Saiyan as my dad is about not being a Saiyan. The difference is, at least Raditz is right.
Once not that long ago, when I was meditating, I was thinking about how Piccolo is so sure he's gonna die, even now, even after all the training we did. My mind started wandering and I imagined what's gonna happen when the Saiyans show up, and then this vision played through my head, of Piccolo dying, and it was...terrible. I felt like I fell asleep, I felt like I woke up...then fell asleep again...and when I snapped back to it, I felt like my insides were all singed. I don't know if I ever really fell asleep. Maybe I was awake the whole time. It was so blurry. All that was left was me being so mad about the Saiyans killing Piccolo.
If Raditz was still here, I woulda asked him about it. I don't know why, but it just feels like it's a Saiyan thing. Actually, I do know why. It's...a little...weird, though.
Like I said, when I felt like I was myself again, after that whole thing, my insides felt burnt. Everything hurt, like my blood was rushing through too fast, or like inside it was one of those scary-looking chemicals in Bulma's lab. Like I just finished a sparring match, but also like I was poisoned, somehow. I thought maybe it was just because I was so mad, but even after I wasn't mad, the feeling kept going, and whenever I think of it again, of that whole thing, and most especially of Piccolo dying, everything starts hurting real bad and I have to stop. I think I should ask Bulma about it, maybe she's the next-best thing to asking Raditz, maybe she can look at my blood and see if there's anything weird with it.
But I just keep feeling like I got up way too bad by my own insides, and I think it's a Saiyan thing because—because I think—it's something about my tail. It hurts more than anything else and I don't think I want to try to put up with it anymore. I know Raditz wouldn't like it, and, I don't really like it either, but...
"Dad," I say, and walk up to him, and he looks up in the middle of taking a big bite of fish.
"What is it, Gohan?" he says, with little bits of food flying out of his mouth. Gee, am I glad Mom taught me how to be nice while I eat. "Are you feeling better? Wanna spar?"
I take a big, deep breath. I've just gotta say it. "Cut my tail off."
I shoulda asked Piccolo, I...but... "Why?" he asks, but he looks happy. I know that he used to like having a tail, but I guess now he's just looking for ways to be less like Raditz, less like a Saiyan. I guess Raditz left him feeling pretty sour about the whole thing.
"Did you ever feel like there was something burning away all your insides?" I ask him. Right. This is why I came up to him to talk about this. Maybe, maybe this one time he'll think about how he's a Saiyan, if it's going to help me. "Or like your stomach is full of big heavy coals?"
The way his eyebrows come up in the middle says I'm probably not in luck. "No," he says. "Not really, no."
"Like, what if you imagine Mom dying, or me, or, or Kuririn, or..." I hope maybe if he does it then and there it'll happen and he'll know what I mean.
"I don't do that," he says, like he's kind of mad. "I don't like to think about things like that, Gohan."
"Me either," I say. Maybe this was a bad idea. "But sometimes I do on accident."
"What does this have to do with your tail?" he says.
"I think it's my tail that makes my insides feel really awful after I get all mad," I say. "It hasn't always been like that, but, you know..."
"Hm," he says. "Well, okay. It's probably for the best anyway, you know? That you get it cut off, I mean. Your tail is your weak spot."
That's not true, because Raditz and I were trying to figure out how I could train my tail so that it wouldn't hurt if somebody pulled on it and stuff. But, I'm not gonna say that, of course. So I just nod.
"All right, well, this won't be too bad," he says, grabbing 'round the bottom of my tail. "It never hurt me too much, at least."
"Yeah," I say. "It'll be better than how I feel now, anyway, sooner or later. I hope."
"Here goes," he says, and yank, just like that, he's pulled it off. I yelp, but forget about the pain as my dad throws the tail to the ground and blasts it. "There," he looks at me. "That was okay, right? Feel any better?"
"Not yet," I say, 'cause the pain from having it yanked out starts coming back. Maybe it is better to have it gone now, though. After all, Raditz said that he had a "ghost-tail." I read up about it, one of the times my insides left me all tired. When you lose part of your body and you can still feel it they call it a phantom limb, I guess. I guess if I had my tail for as long as he did, and it got pulled off, I'd have the same problem. It doesn't sound very nice... "But I hope I will soon."
"Let's spar as soon as you do," he says, and smiles at me with that big smile that he has when he's proud of me. "You've gotten really strong and I don't think we ever really went all-out against each other."
Actually, I don't really like that thought much, 'cause...he's really strong, and, a real real fight is still really scary to me. I know Piccolo wishes I could change that part of me, but I don't know if I ever will. My dad is the opposite...he's not happy until everybody's fighting their very hardest against him and it feels like a real battle. Not that I know what a real battle feels like...but I'm kind of glad I don't. "Okay," I say. I have to, with that big smile of his. I never used to make him smile like that, not that he didn't like me, you know. But I don't think he really understands what studying is. Maybe I was boring to him, when all I did was study because Mom didn't want to let him train me.
"I'm going to go visit Bulma," I say.
"What for?" he asks. I think he's still a little mad at Bulma, not like the way he's mad at Raditz, but, like she let him down I guess. I don't know...I guess maybe it was her fault, but...we don't even know what happened. All I saw was Raditz standing there, underneath the dragon, and then he was gone, and then it was gone.
I don't know if I really want to tell him that I wanna go there so I can see if she can tell me anything else about Saiyans, like if Raditz said anything to her about the burning, or anything like that, or maybe if she got a hold of him if she finished the scouter. "I'm just going to have her look and make sure my body isn't messed up," I say. That's pretty close, right? I don't like lying, and especially to my dad, but it seems like I keep having to stop myself from saying things. "'Cause it sure feels that way, you know?"
"Sure," he says, and I guess he seems okay with that. "Can you get some heavier weights while you're there? I'm almost used to these. Er, if she puts them in one of those capsule things you should be able to carry them, right?"
"Yeah," I say. "I might be a while, 'cause last time she told me about how electricity works and it was really cool so I wanna ask her more."
"Okay," my dad tilts his head a little, like he doesn't get it. And, well, maybe he doesn't. I take off in a hurry, rubbing at the spot where my tail was. I better get there fast, in case I was right, in case cutting off my tail gets rid of the burnt feeling, because if it does then what if Bulma can't test anything? Somehow, I think she'd be upset too. She always wants to learn stuff, just like me. Thinking that maybe my answer to what's wrong is right around the corner makes me speed up even more, and I'm there in no time. Bulma is standing outside, like she was waiting for me all along—and it looks like she has something important to say.
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