Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Wish For The Past ❯ Nightmares ( Chapter 47 )

Blood... blood everywhere... guilt... fear... despair... grief... pain... hopelessness...

Death.

A teenage boy's corpse lay on the ground, broken, bloody, torn, twisted, and tortured. His death had been gruesome and painful, drawn out for days before his body had finally given out. His screams still echoed in the oppressive, smoke-laden air, trapped by the billowing clouds that blotted out the sun. Smoldering fires burned in the distance, their orange light casting a ghastly glow on the carnage depicted in the scene around him.

Shift.

On the cracked, barren, and dusty soil near the teenager, a little child, barely seven years old, lay draped over a sharp, craggy pile of rubble from what had once been a tall, proud building. He was barely recognizable as male, his body was so mutilated and shredded, as though some wild beast had mauled him and left his bloody remains to be pounded into the ground by a rockslide, or something equally as violent.

Both boys were clearly, indisputably dead.

Shift.

A fist slugged itself into the face of the watcher, clouding his vision momentarily and throwing him to the ground. When his sight returned, he found that he was surrounded by an unknown number of people. Though he couldn't see their faces clearly, he knew that they were cold, unsympathetic, mocking, and disgusted. He struggled to get up, only to find that he couldn't move his arms or his legs because something bound them together. Someone behind him that he couldn't see picked him up by the back of his shirt, forcing him to face his attacker.

The fist slammed itself into his face again, but this time he was kept from falling by the stranger behind him. His entire body was wracked with pain, beaten and broken almost as badly as the children's were. Blood dripped from a cut on his forehead into his eyes, further obscuring his vision to the point where he could barely make out the features of the person who had hit him.

Another boy, but this one stood proudly, despite his small stature, his flame-like black hair adding a few inches in height. The child raised his hand again, face dispassionate as a ball of ki formed in front of his outright palm, but his eyes betrayed him. Even as he prepared to deliver the final blow to the prisoner, his eyes spoke of regret and remorse for what he was about to do. In the boy's dark eyes, the prisoner could see that he did not want to do this and yet, for some reason, had to. The boy's lips moved, but, strangely, the watcher couldn't hear what was said.

Everything flashed a brilliant, blinding white as the searing ball of ki left its owner's hand and descended on its target.

With a jolt, Bardock woke up, cold sweat pouring down his face as the nightmare continued to replay in his head. He shivered violently and shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it of the images of Goku and Radditz as they lay in their separate pools of blood. Unconsciously grasping his sleeping son protectively, he trembled under the onslaught of emotions that the dream had evoked. It was only a dream. Only a dream, he told himself, over and over, squeezing his eyes closed as he buried his face in his son's hair. I've just been so worried about Goku dying that it got translated into an exaggerated nightmare. That's all. Shivering again, he couldn't help but lift his head up so he could look at his peacefully sleeping son, examining him to make sure that he was truly alive and unharmed, beyond the injuries he'd already received.

True to his assumption, the chibi Saiyan was quite well, sleeping with a contented look on his face. At some point during the time that Bardock had been dozing off the older Saiyan's tail had found its way into the boy's grasp, and now Goku had the tip in his mouth and was sucking on it in his sleep, a gesture that made him seem years younger, a baby in his father's lap. Giving a happy sigh, the little boy snuggled closer to his father's warm chest.

A shuddering wave of relief washed over him and he blinked back the tears that threatened to form in his eyes. It was only a dream, he firmly repeated a final time, irritated with himself for reacting so badly to some bit of nonsense cooked up by his overstressed brain. Shoving the whole matter to the back of his mind, he concentrated on the tiny form cradled in his arms, unable to help the small smile that crept its way onto his lips at the sight of his son drooling all over his tail. He'd never held either of his sons like this when they were little, had never allowed them to get their hands on his tail, let alone place it in their mouths. He could recall feeling that it was humiliating to subject himself to their childish behavior, that it was soft and weak to show anything that might be interpreted as fondness for either of his offspring.

Somewhere along the course of time, those opinions had changed, and he no longer felt the same way. Now he was content to let Goku continue to suck on his tail, happy to simply hold him in his arms, not caring anymore what kind of image he was projecting. A faint sense of sadness touched his heart as he thought on all the years of tail slobbering he had missed out on because he had never allowed himself to get close to his children. He almost wished that he could turn back time and do things differently, but then he and his sons would not be who they were today. For better or for worse, this was how things had turned out, and he was glad that he at least had his son now.

Closing his eyes again, he inhaled deeply, then exhaled, simply enjoying the feel of holding his smallest son against his chest. The smile continued to play across his face, all concerns with the terrible dream forgotten as a deep sense of peace enveloped him. Giving his son a gentle squeeze, he opened his eyes-

-and found that he was no longer in the room he had been in when he closed his eyes.

Black. That was the predominant color in the half of the store where he and Bulma were now standing. Considering the mood Radditz was in, black was the perfect color. He could almost imagine that there was a little storm cloud floating over his head, he was that angry. Angry with the little onna for putting him through this humiliation, and angry with himself for letting her. And yet there didn't seem to be a damn thing he could do about it! He felt like a puppet with the blue haired girl holding the strings: Helpless and forced to do whatever she wanted. He still didn't know how she had done it.

"How much longer is this supposed to take?" he growled impatiently as the store clerk fitted another piece of the ridiculous suit, checking the to make sure that coat hung correctly from his broad shoulders. The clerk, having long since gotten used to the boy's complaints, ignored him and continued with his work. Discovering an adjustment that needed to be made, he removed the coat and took it over to his work bench where he could alter it appropriately.

"Don't be such a baby, Radditz," Bulma murmured, staring happily at the shirtless Saiyan standing on a stool in the middle of the formal wear shop. "It's only been half an hour, and you do want it to fit right, don't you?"

"I never wanted to wear the damn thing in the first place!" Radditz grated out through clenched teeth. "You're the one who insisted on making me come to this damn store and making me stand here while this bakayaro takes his damn time dressing me up in the most useless, uncomfortable, and constricting clothing in the known universe!!" He was in a bad mood and he didn't care if everyone knew it or not. Hell, maybe the brat would get the idea that he was on the edge of blowing up the entire shopping complex and just let him go home!

Glaring furiously at her crush, Bulma reached out and whacked him on the back of his head. Hard. Well, hard for her, anyway. Radditz didn't even flinch. "Watch your language, Radditz!" she snapped, her eyes flashing dangerously. "And tuxedos aren't useless! If you ever want to attend a formal dance, you'll have to wear one or they won't let you in!" Her voice was rising in pitch with each word until Radditz's ears began to start ringing. Wincing in pain, he attempted to raise his hands to cover his sensitive ears, only to find that he couldn't move one of them. The damn tailor was back and was now fitting a sleeve onto the body of the coat, pinning his arm to his side in the process. "And further more!" Bulma screeched, standing on tiptoe to bring her face closer to Radditz's. "If you keep yelling and embarrass me in front of all these people, I'm going to make your life a miserable, living hell!!!" For some reasons, she didn't seem to realize, or maybe she just didn't care, that she was screaming so loudly that the clothes on the racks were shaking violently, threatening to fall off their hangers.

Radditz quailed under the intense fury that Bulma radiated from every square inch of her eleven year old body. Seeing this, Bulma nodded sharply and sat down in a chair to wait for the tailor to finish putting together the beautiful black and white tuxedo. The teenager sighed moodily and settled for glaring down at his bare feet. Unfortunately, that only served to remind him that they had yet to pick out shoes for this new outfit. Groaning miserably, the poor Saiyan boy could only close his eyes and hope that the torture would end soon, or that Kami would deign to arrange for a terrorist attack that would level the entire mall. Anything to escape this nightmare!

Still holding Goku in his arms, Bardock blinked owlishly at the open, empty landscape that stretched out for as far as the eye could see. Well, not quite empty. He was standing in the middle of a flat stone stage surrounded by brick walls, and there was a building of some kind on one side. A lonely wind blew through the place, and suddenly the area around the arena was filled with people. Humans, he absently noted somewhere in the back of his mind.

His attention was attracted by a furious battle being fought in the middle of the ring, not too far from where he was standing. One of the fighters was a bald man with three eyes, tall and well muscled from years of fighting. But it was the other that Bardock stared at.

It was Goku.

As the two battled furiously, apparently oblivious to the father and son standing in the ring, Bardock's mind struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. Glancing down at the child in his arms, then back at the boy who was dueling with the bigger man, he realized that it wasn't Goku. At least, not the same Goku he was holding. This other Goku was older, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old, judging by how much he'd grown and how little baby fat he had. It was then that he realized that this had to be another one of his visions, and for once, it wasn't one predicting death and disaster.

Having solved the mystery of what was going on, Bardock calmly walked out of the ring so he could get a better look at what was going on. Running his eyes over the crowd of spectators, he saw an older version of Bulma, a floating grey cat, and a short pig, along with the boy, Yamcha, that he had met briefly at the Kame house. The young fighter was wielding a pair of crutches, keeping the weight off his obviously broken leg. He also noted a man that looked like Muten Roshi with hair and the short, bald child, Krillen, observing from the waiting area behind the ring. Try as he might, though, Bardock was unable to find himself or Radditz anywhere. That's odd. My son seems to be in some kind of fighting tournament, but I'm not watching? I wouldn't miss this unless I didn't have a choice in the matter. What could have happened to me that would keep me from watching my son fight?

Still puzzling the matter over in his mind, he continued to follow the fight as the three-eyed man took to the air, shouting something down at his younger opponent. Goku stared up at his foe fearlessly and held his ground, despite whatever the man was yelling. For some reason, Bardock was unable to make out the words, though the dream-Goku seemed to hear them just fine. The human appeared to be powering up some kind of ki attack, and Bardock held his breath anxiously as the entire world flashed a brilliant, blinding white-

-and he was back in the room where the vision had begun, still sitting in the chair with his seven year old son sleeping in his arms.

A feeling of melancholy swept over him as he thought back on what he had just witnessed. Why is it that for all of my visions, I'm only present for the terrible things? Why can't I ever be there for the good things? Getting up out of the chair, he paced up and down the length of the room, still carrying Goku, his mind preoccupied with the vision. Idly, he wondered how the match had ended. He hadn't been able to see how his son had reacted to that last attack the human had thrown at him. The light had been too bright to see anything clearly.

Frowning, Bardock stopped pacing and looked out the window, not really seeing the world outside. That light... it was exactly like the light that ended that nightmare... Thinking about the nightmare caused him to shiver and turn away from the window. The dream had been so real, down to the pain of Vegeta's fist connecting with his face. He'd never had a dream that realistic before. It was only a dream, he inwardly repeated the phrase like a mantra. It was... only... a dream....? Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he stared off into space, his mind's eye flashing through the horrible scenes of his sons' dead bodies, and of the beating he'd received at the hands of his prince. It had been real. Too real. In fact, it had been as real as the vision of the tournament that he had just had, beyond the fact that he hadn't been able to hear what Vegeta had been saying.

But, then, the same thing had happened in the vision of Goku's tournament.

Unbeknownst to Bardock, tears began to form in his eyes, making silver trails down the sides of his face. "No..." he whispered to himself. "It can't be a vision! It... just can't!" His mind numbly grasped at any possible reason that the nightmare couldn't be a vision, but came up blank. The dream bore all the earmarks of his other visions and there were too many parallels between it and the vision that had followed afterwards to be ignored. And yet, it made no sense! "How can they both be visions, when they contradict each other?" he muttered, his eyebrows drawing together in a look of intense confusion and frustration. "In the first one, Goku dies as a seven year old, whereas the second one shows him alive and well and several years older. They can't both happen!" He thought briefly on the possibility that perhaps Goku hadn't been dead in the first vision, just mortally wounded. It would explain why he and Radditz hadn't been at the tournament if they'd both died while Goku recovered and went on to compete in that tournament. It was a logical enough explanation.

Then he remembered the state of the seven year old's body during the nightmare. Tail ripped off and lying limply in the dirt next to him, gaping holes in his stomach and chest, and a slit throat, along with many other injuries that would prove fatal if left untended, and Bardock came to the firm, undeniable, and heart wrenching conclusion that his son could not have survived the torture that had been inflicted on his young body in the vision. Squeezing his eyes shut, tears still leaking out of them, he desperately clutched Goku as tightly as he dared without waking or hurting the boy, his mind reeling under the shock and confusion the two visions caused.

That was how he remained for the next hour, hunched protectively over the sleeping child that he held in his arms even as he silently cried while seated on the edge of the bloodstained bed.

Fortunately for me, most of my reviewers survived Vegeta's little outburst. Yay! Sorry about those of you he killed. *gathers dragonballs and wishes all her reviewers back to life* Great! Now you can review again! *hint hint* *Son Puppy Eyes (TM)* *grins*