Welcome to Boxer & Rice

► Chapter 01     Chapter 02     Chapter 03     Chapter 04     Chapter 05     Chapter 06     Chapter 07     Chapter 08     Chapter 09 *Kaiobito fell backwards into tall grass, exhausted.

"Well, that's over," he said, staring up into the sky.

"Yeah," he said after a moment in a slightly different voice, sounding as tired as he felt.

"I guess it went as well as could be expected," Kaiobito said in the first voice, letting his eyes drift shut. Mentally, the conversation went on between the two beings who had not yet quite totally fused, and might not ever. Unlike the saiyajins, who had fused to become single new beings, Kaioshin and Kibito hadn't utterly melded. Kaiobito wasn't unhappy with that. It meant he was never without company.

/Hai, things turned out pretty good . . . / Kibito said, and Kaioshin, knowing him well, waited patiently for the rest of it.

/But there's now four ascended saiyajins down there who exceed our power by quite a lot. Gohan and the little ones don't worry me, but that other one . . . /

/Vejitto? I think he'll be all right. He's a little more Vegeta than Goku, but Vegeta had almost redeemed himself, if you remember. It'll take some adjusting for everybody, but it'll work out. And they knew that the fusion was permanent when they put the Potaras on./

Silence set in between two powerful, mystical beings who were also one awesomely powerful, mystical being.

/I guess you're right,/ Kibito said after awhile. /I just have a feeling this wasn't exactly the way things were supposed to work out./

Kaioshin sighed. /Well, there's not a hell of lot we can do about it now anyway . . . /

Both of them seemed to be pondering that statement deeply. Only after the buzzsaw noise grew loud enough to scare birds out of nearby trees and then shake the foundations of heaven was it apparent Kaiobito was snoring.*

*****************

Under a blackened sky, a supernatural being of great power loomed, glowing brightly against the darkness. It moved slowly, the huge coils of its body twining and untwining with increasing restlessness.

Beneath it, near the cluster of brightly glowing spheres from which the dragon appeared to spring, a man sat against a boulder, his arms crossed, apparently ignoring the staggering vision above him. A knowledgeable viewer would have noted that he was not, in fact, a man at all, but rather a saiyajin. A saiyajin of considerable power. Perhaps the most powerful one who had ever lived.

A trim, muscular frame moved restlessly, while the handsome face, framed by wild hair, was dark with discontent.

Vejitto brooded. Being who he was, he did this extremely well, but he also couldn't keep it up for long. Besides which, the dragon was glowering at him from on high, looking more and more annoyed. Vejitto knew the bitch couldn't leave until the wishes had been granted, but he also didn't really want to piss Shenron off any further.

*Shit.*

The dragon was here, but couldn't grant his wish to be separated back into Vegeta and Kakarott. "BEYOND MY POWER." That had earned the beast a good ten minutes of profanity only a saiyajin with long experience in Furiza's army could have unleashed. Vejitto had apologized gruffly afterwards, noticing the furious way sparks were traveling up and down the beast's body and the thunder cracking continuously around it. He didn't really think the beast was mollified, though.

*Fuck.*

Vejitto was bored. There was nothing left anywhere that was near his power level. At least he'd had himselves to fight against in the past, but now . . . Only Gohan was worth breaking a sweat over now, and Gohan was *still* too freaked out by the fusion to agree to spar much. He'd considered going to train Ubuu, but after some internal debate, he hadn't been able to see the point. He'd left the thing alive; how much else did he owe it?

He supposed he could go rule the universe. It would be something to do. However, he didn't really want to leave his families. Even though said families weren't exactly the most supportive right at the moment.

Oh, the younger boys, being fusion brats themselves, had zero problem with the new situation. They called him "Papa" or "Otousan" just like always, and declared that they were brothers now. That suited them both just fine. Being Gotenks certainly hadn't done anything to drive those two apart.

Bulma, after some days of consideration, was all over him. She seemed to think that the combination of her lover and her best friend was nothing to pass up. The sex, he had to admit, was beyond anything either saiyajin had experienced separately. He also found, a little bit to his surprise, that he had no qualms about pounding someone not entirely his wife into the mattress. It worked out well enough for all concerned, he supposed. As a lover, he was both relaxed and knowledgeable, and Bulma was now . . . tired. And happy. Except for the fact that she treated him like her prize bull, he probably would have been happy too. He actually found it all a bit insulting after awhile, and kind of lonely, actually.

Especially since Chichi apparently considered her husband dead. The last time he'd seen her, she'd clung to Gohan like she was drowning and refused to speak to him. Vejitto had been both hurt and sorely tempted to just hammer her into the ground like a tent stake. Instead, he'd packed up all of Goku's belongings and left the house. He had stood in the air for some time above it, unsure how he felt. Sadness and indignation warred in him until he left, going out into the desert to rearrange the landscape

Gohan busied himself with Videl. He couldn't really accept Vejitto, despite being Goku's son. He'd fought with and against Vegeta for years, but that familiarity didn't count for much now. He usually avoided Vejitto altogether, and Vejitto suspected that he was secretly mourning for his father. That pissed Vejitto off to no end. He WAS Gohan's father, alive and well, no matter what his offspring thought of it. He remembered the moment the brat was born, after all. His father *would* have been dead without Vejitto, anyway. As dead as he'd ever been.

As for Goku's friends . . . Well, for the most part, they had little to say to Vejitto. They were uncomfortable with the Vegeta in their Goku and uncertain whether they could trust him, even after every damned thing Vegeta had gone through. He had been saddened and hurt by this at first. Then, inevitably, he'd decided they could all go fuck themselves. He didn't need them. He was still the Saiyajin no Ouji and he wasn't going to waste his time running after a bunch of weaklings, no matter what they had meant to him.

And he WAS still Saiyajin no Ouji. That title was so integral to Vegeta's being that even fusion couldn't alter it. He'd considered it. True, Vegeta had fused with a third class. However, that third class had already become a living god by saiyajin standards. The Prince of All Saiyajins had deigned to fuse with him. That made him good enough. Vejitto had resolved that particular conflict within two seconds of fusing. That particular bit of royal arrogance had been an unaffordable luxury after the fusion. It was a question of sanity.

He sighed now.

Chichi's husband, Bulma's husband, Trunks' and Goten's father, Gohan's father, friend to many, friend to none, defender of Chikkyu-sei, and Prince of all Saiyajins. Vejitto was every one of those things, and if he could freaking deal with it, he didn't see why anyone else couldn't.

He spent much of his time alone now.

He glared up at the useless dragon, frustrated. Then he smiled a little. "I wish for my tail, and those of all saiyajin and saiyajin hybrids, to be restored now with the power to be regenerated at will." The dual voices he had spoken with in the beginning had long since blended into a fine baritone.

"DONE."

There was a burning, expected pain down his spine, and he ripped a hole in his gi to let his tail out. He thrashed it around with almost childish delight. He loved it! And he had missed it hugely since coming to Chikkyu-sei. With practiced ease, he snapped it around his waist and grinned.

Somewhere, he knew, Trunks and Goten were running around yelling like fools, while his baka eldest son was freaking out, probably embarrassed half to death.

Vejitto could feel his whole body react to his tail. Hormones flooded him, making his body flush, and he felt his senses shift subtly. He didn't feel so . . . ningen anymore. A primal, indescribable feeling washed over him. It felt so damn good that he hardly knew what to do with himself. He levitated into the air a few dozen feet, whipping his tail around and letting the momentum pull him into a spin.

"WHAT IS YOUR SECOND WISH?"

Vejitto grimaced and stopped as he was brought back to the question. What to do? He'd already crushed the stupid earrings, and it hadn't made any difference. There wasn't anything around powerful enough to kill him, and he wasn't going to kill himself. He didn't hate being what he was, really. He could remember being two separate persons, but he didn't know what it had felt like, and so he didn't miss it. He didn't want to die. He was just alone. He had been two warriors who had each other to fight, to hate, to envy, to worry about, to obsess over, to fight with as allies, to miss . . . Now he had nobody. Nobody like that. Nothing like that intense a relationship.

He needed it. His whole being yearned for it.

"Fuck!" he yelled at the dragon in a sudden fury. "If you can't do it, then send me some place where I *can* be separated!"

"DONE."

Was the dragon sounding a little . . . snarky?

As he lost consciousness, he realized that he had no idea where he was going. Maybe it was true: he WAS the baka he'd always said he was . . .

*****************

*Shenron flexed his tail and smirked, a truly terrible expression on a beast that big. He had complied with that annoying saiyajin's wish to the letter.

The dragon was a creature of unfathomable complexity, aware of many things and many truths. The greater universe was a difficult place to understand, full of contradictions and multiplicities. Shenron could understand as many of them as he chose.

He knew perfectly well that the only way to unfuse Vejitto was for him to be absorbed by Buu. In another place and time that is what had happened. The freaky chain of events that had left this Vejitto both unabsorbed and undivided had started with a mere stumble and fall, a burst of ki, and the unleashing of concentrated saiyajin anger. Everything had snowballed from there. Vejitto had eventually wielded the Genki Dama against Buu. And then Vejitto had been left behind, fused super saiyajin surplus.

In most times and places that hadn't been what happened. In most of them, Vejitto had come apart into his component saiyajins again.

Shenron distantly observed the fusion's anger and confusion. If he'd asked, Shenron would have told the rude, cranky saiyajin what to do. He hadn't asked. At that point, Shenron hadn't felt inclined to offer, either.

The dragon considered his massive talons for a moment. There really wasn't any substitute for good manners.*

******************

Blue sky.

He saw blue sky.

Well, that was good.

At least he hadn't wished himself out of existence. Vejitto blinked and rolled his head around on his shoulders, stretching his neck. He flexed all five limbs, testing them. The reports came back fine. Alright then.

Where the hell was he?

He was in mid-air over a battle ground. The smashed and scorched landscape spoke of titanic forces at work. Devastation spread to the horizon. That was familiar enough, certainly. He'd spent most of his life in such places. Looking around, he found fighters facing each other. Or rather, they were placed as if they were facing off, but all three of them were looking at him. Without conscious thought, he scanned power levels. Hn. Strong . . .

The pink thing in the middle looked promising . . . Vejitto's eyes widened in shock.

Buu.

It was Buu again, and down in the rubble below . . .

Vegeta. Kakarott.

What the hell was *this*?

Then he saw something glittering in Goku's hand, and he realized what was about to happen. He was about to be born.

"NO!!!"

Shouting, he dove on Buu, sending the monstrosity flying with a kick that almost severed its head. He knew it would regenerate, but he paid it little attention for the moment. There were more important things on his mind. He could hear Goku pleading with Vegeta to put the damned earring on. If he could only stop them from fusing in the first place, maybe that would do the trick. Maybe he would come apart again. There were further implications to that, but he didn't have much time to think them through.

He slammed into the ground right in front of the two saiyajins. "Don't you fucking dare!" he yelled at Goku, who was staring at him with wide eyes.

"We don't have a choice . . ." Goku said slowly, flicking his eyes to Vegeta and then back to the hauntingly familiar saiyajin in front of them.

"Who the fuck are you?" Vegeta demanded.

*Damn,* Vejitto thought, *I really was annoying.*

Vejitto went through the whole "I am neither Vegeta nor Goku. I am Vejitto." routine. He explained himself somewhat, though he held most of it back. He said something about fighting Buu again. Behind him, he felt rather than heard Buu's thunderous anger as it sped back toward them.

The two saiyajins stared at him wordlessly. Finally, though, Goku lowered the hand with the Potara in it and slipped the earring back in his pocket. He pulled the other one off and stored it with its mate. Whatever else was happening, the saiyajin in front of him was help in a time when they most needed it, and he was willing to hold off on the fusion until he had no other options. Besides which, the newcomer didn't feel evil. He felt about like he should, if he was telling the truth. Not that he was telling all of it. Not even close. Goku felt that quite clearly.

Vegeta scowled, of course. Some part of him was deeply distrustful of this odd development, but that was all right. That was normal. What was distracting him was his overwhelming sense of relief that he didn't have to fuse with Kakarott at all now. He couldn't afford to be distracted now.

Vejitto waited breathlessly for something to happen, for some stroke of supernatural brilliance to cleave him in two. He scowled suddenly, his expression almost identical to Vegeta's. Only now did he realize the total consequences of what he was trying to do. The past few months hadn't really been so awful that he wanted to lose all memory of them . . . did he? Even when split? And what was going to happen here, if they didn't fuse? Buu was very likely going to slaughter them both. Again. And then *everyone* else. He stared at his former selves, frozen between his profound need for them, to be them, and his desire to defeat Buu and prevent disaster.

Nothing happened.

Nothing except that the two saiyajins continued staring at him and Buu got closer and closer.

Vejitto closed his eyes in profound vexation. He was here. He'd stopped them from fusing. What the hell else was he supposed to do? How was fighting Buu all over again supposed to fix anything? Did he even want anything fixed? Maybe if the stupid dragon had told him what to do when he got here . . .

The urge to hurt something pulsed up in his heart.

"What's this, a new playmate?" Buu's voice boomed down at them from above.

Black eyes snapped open and met two other pairs.

"Since we're all here," Vejitto said slowly, his mouth curving up in an unpleasant smile that showed his canines, "let's kill this bastard and then go get something to eat."

The three of them rose up into the air, Vegeta watching him suspiciously.

*Baka dragon . . .*

*****************

Several sets of black eyes and two pairs of blue were fixed on him. Vejitto stood in the courtyard of the Lookout before an audience of practically everyone he knew. They weren't really all that different from the ones he'd left behind, though their opinions of him hadn't been formed yet. They should be happier than they were, though. After all, Buu was really quite dead this time, and all the wishes had been made, bringing Vegeta, among others, back from wherever their souls had gone. For people who'd recently been beaten to death or digested, they were surprisingly dour about his whole existence, especially considering that he had freaking saved them. Well, him and the other two, plus Gotenks, and another Genki Dama. It certainly hadn't taken as long this time.

"I'm not explaining this again," he growled. Twice had been enough. He hadn't gone into all the details of his motivation, but he'd given them more than he'd felt obligated to.

Unsurprisingly, Vegeta seemed to be having some trouble with the situation. Vejitto really couldn't blame him for that. After all, he thought evilly, here he was, yet *another* saiyajin that outmatched Vegeta. Standing there in his standard legs-spread, arms-crossed mode, the original Saiyajin no Ouji frowned at Vejitto. "This is absurd!" he snarled.

Vejitto scowled in return. "Are you accusing me of lying?"

The ouji glared. "You came back because you were *bored*?" Vegeta said, his tone heavy with sarcasm.

"Are you deaf?" Vejitto asked, not impressed.

"Are you tired of living already?" Vegeta snarled, his ki spiking sharply.

"Baka no ouji! Do you forget who I am?" the fusion snapped, his expression ugly. The fact that he was speaking their birth tongue was the only thing that made Vegeta hesitate before replying. His reaction was otherwise perfectly reliable.

"Do you forget who *I* am? I will not be mocked by some mongrel freak!" he roared in the same language.

Vejitto was unable to suppress his laughter. "Forget? I *am* you, baka, or at least I was up until you put the damned earring on!"

His tail came loose and waved behind him.

Vegeta stared.

"Hey, Vegeta," Goku said, coming up to put a hand on his shoulder, "let it go. When you think about it, it does kind of make sense, ne? I mean, if Gohan's really bothered by it, he wouldn't spar, and that leaves nobody. Why not ask the dragon?"

Vegeta's expression became apocalyptic. All he said, though, was "You have your tail back." It wasn't a threat, but it somehow sounded like one.

He spoke in their birth tongue, and thus he was in for a nasty shock when Goku suddenly chirped, "Hey, you're right, Vegeta! He does have his tail!"

Vegeta turned shocked eyes on his rival. Vejitto laughed. "That's right. He understands. He doesn't even realize what language we're speaking. When he's not thinking about it, everything is right there under the surface."

"What are you talking about?" Goku asked, the complex sounds of the saiyajin language flowing easily from his tongue. Vegeta stared at him, watching his mouth move, listening to their birth tongue spoken with Goku's voice, yet unable to connect the two for a minute.

"Why have you never spoken our language before?" he demanded, suddenly beyond pissed. This had been the longest damned day of his entire life.

"Huh?"

"Just shut the fuck up!" He reverted to the ningen tongue, just to make sure the bakayaro understood him.

As if happier that things had returned to familiar ground, the families began to chip in.

"Hey! You can't talk to my Goku like that!"

"Shut up if you want to keep breathing, woman!"

"Vegeta! Don't you threaten her!"

"Just because I fuck you, onna, doesn't mean I take orders from you!"

"Don't you use that kind of language in front of my son!!"

"Mom! I'm not a baby!"

"C'mon, guys, there's no reason to get so upset . . ."

Vejitto stared out into the endless blue as it all escalated, wondering if there was any really pressing reason why he shouldn't Final Flash the lot of them and go rule the universe by himself. ► Chapter 01     Chapter 02     Chapter 03     Chapter 04     Chapter 05     Chapter 06     Chapter 07     Chapter 08     Chapter 09