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I tried to kill the pain
But only brought more
I lay dying
And I’m pouring crimson regret and betrayal

“Are you sure you need to leave so soon?” said a very disappointed pre-teen demi-Saiyajin to his lavender haired comrade. A light breeze blew Trunks’ metallic lavender hair as he stared down at the chibi version of his lost best friend. He gave a light disappointed nod, knowing he didn’t belong in this era with these people that were all dead in his. For what it was worth, he shouldn’t have gotten to know any of them.

“Yeah, I’m afraid so kid.”

The chibi’s eyes shined with tears he violently held in. They sparkled like black diamonds in the bright hot sun that shown on them. Trunks stared longingly at the burning orb. The sun never shown down so brightly in his world.

“Why?” Gohan’s voice cracked out. “Didn’t you say your mom was dying in your time?”

“I have to bury her,” he said in monotone. Letting any emotion escape with those words would result in tears, and just like his father he had too much pride to let that happen in front of just anyone.

“Oh… right.” Gohan shifted his feet uncomfortably back and forth. “Will I ever see you again?”

“Maybe,” Trunks said walking up to the boy and pulling him into a hug. “Depends on how much you visit mom.”

“I don’t mean you in this timeline. I mean you you.”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t count on it if I were you. I don’t feel right in this timeline. You and everyone else are all dead people from my past. If anything, I’m never supposed to see you again, and I’m not supposed to have met the rest of them.”

“Thanks for saving us though… even though father still… ”

“I’m sorry about Goku, Gohan,” Trunks said tightening his grip on the small boy. Gohan was still vulnerable from the death of his father. “And for the last time, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes it was, but thanks for caring anyway.”

Gohan pulled back with tears in his eyes and ran to his mother. Chi-Chi was still horribly devastated by the loss of her koibito, as was everyone else. However, Gohan made a vow to himself to be the world’s protector the way his late father was. So the tears he shed were for Trunks, the fleeing lavender haired god whom he secretly fell in love with.

Take care kid, Trunks thought to himself while embracing his sobbing mother. Though she was attempting to squeeze the life out of him, his thoughts lay intently on the broken chibi form of his former master. It was no surprise to him that little Gohan was in love with him. It was a secret to everyone else, but Trunks knew. Him and Gohan were soul mates beyond doubt, which was why they were so attracted to one another. But unlike chibi Gohan, Trunks didn’t have his mate in his timeline, but the Super Saiyajin 2 did. The mirai boy had no room to interfere with that any longer. He simply didn’t belong where he was. All it would do was break his chibi self’s heart in the future.

“Mom, please let go.”

“I’ll miss you so much,” said a sobbing Bulma squeezing Trunks tighter then he thought she possibly could. Seriously, she was going to hurt herself.

“You already have me here mom. I promise I’ll visit, if I can.”

He left that `if I can’ part up so he wouldn’t be guilty of lying to his mother. He would come back if he could, but he couldn’t. Trunks wasn’t going to interfere in the life Gohan needed to live any longer.

“I’ve got to go mother. I’m sorry,” he said letting go of her. Then he looked over to his father who was leaning against a tree. Trunks figured Vegeta’d be happy when all this was over. “Good-bye father. I’m very happy to have finally met you.”

“Hn,” the prince responded in a bored tone. Trunks smiled, happy to know he at least got a response.

“I love you both mother… father. I hope you have nice lives.”

Vegeta snorted slightly, Bulma however broke out into more hysterical sobs waving good-bye to her precious mirai son as he got into his time machine.

“Good-bye, Trunks. I love you. Take good care of yourself. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“He gets the point, woman,” Vegeta spat out bitterly. All in all, it was normal for him to be in a bad mood so nobody bothered to give him a second glance. In this case however, he was going to miss his boy. Trunks truly was his son. “He’ll be fine,” the Saiyajin whispered quietly enough so only Bulma could hear him. She smiled and nodded, wiping her tears away with the back of her sleeve.

“Yes, we’ll take good care of the son we’ve got here.”

Vegeta snorted again. “No, you’ll take care of it until it’s old enough to train.”

“Our son is not an it, Vegeta. He’s a he.

“Whatever.”

I’m dying, praying, bleeding, and screaming
Am I too lost to be saved
Am I too lost?

Trunks got back to his time in the black of night and disposed of the time machine so there would be no turning back. As usual, it hurt to breathe coming back from twenty years in the past. The air in that timeline was very fresh, the smell of agriculture and clean ocean filled the earth’s oxygen there. Everywhere in his timeline smelled of smoke, asphalt, and just flat out pollution. The air screamed of pure filth. If the androids hadn’t killed the people by their hands, then it was by the polluted air. According to what little records Japan was able to keep anymore, the number one killer of everyone (with the exception of the androids themselves) was respiratory failure.

“Yep, mother has definitely died,” he whispered to himself not sensing her life force anywhere. He remembered being reluctant to go back to the past since his mother had cancer in her lungs. Not to mention she had a severe case of Hepatitis C due to unknown circumstances. He knew she’d be dead by the time he got back. Her paling skin and yellowing eyes told it all. She was going to die.

He bolted through the air heading straight for Capsule Corp. Bulma no doubt would be lying dead in her bed. Trunks hoped she went in her sleep, so her death would be fairly painless. Or at the very least he hoped she was thinking of something nice just before her life was taken.

It wasn’t long before he arrived at his home. It was just as broken and sullen as always. He never remembered Capsule Corp. being the pleasant place it once was.

When he entered, the place was gloomier then usual. Everything looked grey, so grey he thought he was in a black and white horror movie. But that’s what his world was always like. Color seamed to have no such existence in this miserable place.

“Oh mother,” he said reaching the door of her room and opening it. It smelled as though she’d been dead for a good four days. Her purple eye lids were shut, her pale ghostly lips were slightly parted, and her skin just hung there drooping from her cheek bones.

He walked up to her corpse and reluctantly placed his callous fingers on her face. She was ice cold, just like the room he was in. Now he really was in a horror movie.

“No!” he said with a broken voice. His body shook in pain, and every one of his innards seemed to squeeze violently in shock and pain. He thought he was ready to let go of her, apparently he’d thought wrong. “NOOOOO!!!!!!”

The lavender haired youth clutched his stomach hard, looking as though he were about to vomit and collapsed hard to his knees. It hurt, it hurt so badly. Just like the day when Gohan died, this was almost exactly how he felt. Only he still had his mom then. This time there was no one. Everyone had officially died. He was the sole survivor of the entire Saiyajin race, the Z-senshi, and now the Briefs family.

How could one live that way? Being the sole survivor of three major things and perhaps more. What was life when there was no one to live it with? He felt so shallow now. With every tear he shed was another part of his soul that was dying. A huge part of himself left when Gohan diseased. His only protector was dead, and now the only person he had to protect was gone as well. He wanted to be next. And yet, however sooner or later he’d go, he would be the next wouldn’t he? He was the sole survivor after all.

My God, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation
My God, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation

After burying his mother, he placed a bouquet of wild kikyou flowers on her grave and prayed for her. He couldn’t pray audibly though, he just placed his palms together, bowed, and closed his eyes in the process. Crying was something he didn’t want to do, yet it wouldn’t have mattered. No one would see him. Everyone who would’ve come to this grave site was already dead. The androids got all of his comrades, even the weakest ones on Kame She’nin’s island. He felt truly alone for the first time in his entire life.

“Soki da, Okasan,” Trunks sniffled and swallowed a heavy lump in his throat. Letting go of the very last person you love in the world was not an easy task. In fact, it hurt like hell and it was extremely hard to flee the gravesite without turning back, but it was the only way to keep him from burying himself alive along with his mother.

It didn’t take him long to get home. After burying his mother near where she said Vegeta was buried, he lent against the door and let out a whole hearted sigh. He nearly regretted blowing away that time capsule. Trunks was extremely intelligent, yet he was no scientist. Even if Bulma did still have the blue prints, he wouldn’t be able to construct another time machine.

“I’ll… just have to keep myself from sharp objects, huh?” he asked teary eyed to the vase on the bottom stair he stood in front of. It was official, Trunks had completely gone crazy. He was speaking to inanimate objects as if they had ears.

He picked the designer vase up off the floor and carried it into the living room with him. Slowly with the palm of his hand he rubbed away the dust and saw his reflection in it. He looked awful due to the lack of sleep and food. He didn’t have much will to live left.

Trunks sat and hugged the vase to his chest. He then began talking of all his problems to the glass object. He didn’t even get a quarter of the way through his tragic story before hugging the vase too close to him and breaking it. A loud scream escaped him as his power shot up to super Saiyajin, the intense power shattering every window left in the house. Everything he came near died. Even things that didn’t even have a life to begin with.

Do you remember me
Lost for so long
Will you be on the other side
Or will you forget me

He laid in his dusty old bed that night shedding more tears then he ever had in his life. His mouth became dry, he head was pounding, he felt as though his heart was bleeding. It didn’t matter to him though, perhaps he deserved all this pain. After all the pain the Saiyajins of his father’s past caused. Perhaps being the last remaining gave him the obligation to feel the same amount of pain countless amounts of former people felt when their lives were taken by the Saiyajins.

Trunks’d never hurt a living soul though, save for those wretched androids whom he had no doubt in mind were off torchering the civilians even as he lay there in a puddle of his own sweat and tears.

Though he didn’t know why before, he felt sorry for those androids. He understood now why exactly they killed everyone and everything. They had nothing else to live for. They killed because they were programmed to do so. They killed because they didn’t know any better. That was why Kuririn had fallen in love with Juuhachigou back in the past timeline. The androids were not bad people. The androids were his ticket off of Chikyuu.

“I think I’ll go pay Juunanagou and Juuhachigou a visit,” he said turning on the radio. Like routine there those literal killing machines were killing people in Kyoto again. They went there about every five to ten years or so, just like they did Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, and any of the other major cities of Japan. Even his own West City had been attacked three times, and that was why a good 85% of it was gone.

Once he’d slipped on his traditional gi pants, black tank top, and the small Capsule Corp. jacket he loved so much, he darted out the window and headed north east toward Kyoto.

Surely enough, Kyoto’s populace was brought back down to zero upon his arrival. This was one of the android’s favorite targets, so why people kept coming to this place was above and beyond him. Then again, he really had no place to speak seeing as he lived in a city that was an even bigger target of the androids.

“Now, where are those fucking androids,” Trunks said under his breath, beginning to become impatient. If only he’d been here five minutes sooner, then he’d be able to see the last of the explosions to give him a clue. The only chance of him finding them was to search the place closely, and hope they were in the mood to kill once more that night before they retired to wherever the hell they liked to hide out.

This was stupid, he thought to himself. It was extremely frustrating to search for something with your eyes and not with your ki. Then he thought, maybe they’ll find me. Then it’d look a lot less like suicide.

Suicide was a sin. And all he wanted was to be with the people he loved, or just with the one he loved more then anything. Since he was little, he had the hugest crush on Gohan. He always clung to the elder demi-Saiyajin, he always smiled when he was around his Gohan, and Gohan would always smile for him. Trunks felt such deep insatiable love for his master, half of himself died the day Gohan left him.

“I’m going to come back to you, Gohan. I have absolutely nothing else to live for.”

And from behind him, he heard a pair of familiar sinister cackles. His fate was sealed, so he smiled, wiped away the last of his tears, and swiftly turned to face his two biggest enemies of twenty-one years.

“Did you hear what he said, sis?” Juunanagou said laughing while giving to purple haired boy his cold stare.

“Oh I heard, Blondie finally wants to die.”

Okay, make it look good, Trunks thought to himself so that his final tourniquet wouldn’t look like suicide. I wanted to go where everyone else went. He wanted to die like everyone else did. Everyone else died by or because of the wicked androids. Now it was his turn to feel the pain that they felt, and die by the androids that his timeline had. The people he met in the past were dead. They meant nothing to him. They were nothing but carbon copies of what he would’ve had. Nothing but dark reminders of what he never would have again.

I’m dying, praying, bleeding and screaming
Am I too lost to be saved
Am I too lost?

He powered up to ascended Super Saiyajin 1 and charged up toward his fiends. Being no stranger to this demi-Saiyajin, Juunanagou vanished in back of his sister in order to confuse the Saiyajin. Instinctively, Trunks took a step back being all too familiar with this move. As soon as raven haired android jumped out from behind the blonde, Trunks drew his sword and sliced the shin of his jeans. Juunanagou jumped back with an irritated look on his face, and then his sister jumped into the fight. She flung a hard kick at Trunks which sent him flying into what was left of one of the buildings. He countered with his infamous burning attack, which grazed the shins of her pants. Now both the androids were pissed.

“Just because you want to die doesn’t give you the right to destroy my clothing,” the blonde screamed toward her enemy. She charged right back at Trunks aiming a ki covered fist at him. In attempt to strike him, she hit the building he was smashed into just barely missing him as he jumped into the air. Juunanagou elbowed him in the back when he wasn’t looking though, and he landed to the ground on his knees. Those two would never change. Same power punch, same two on one advantage they took.

“Look, he’s on his knees. Are you surrendering your life to us, Trunks,” the dark haired android teased. There was nothing more irritating then when your enemy says your name in a tone that mocks your very being. Hot golden ki sparked around his heated body. He was ready to take the initiative.

“You want a fight, Juunanagou!!?” Trunks screamed staring daggers in the ice blue eyes of the one who mocked him. Oh how that devious bucket of bolts mocked him.

“No, I want to kill you,” Trunks smirked and charged up at his nemesis. The mocking laughter of the seventeenth android was enough to make his blood boil ten fold. He hated being mocked, seeing as everything in his life seemed to mock him. And all those horrible fiendish androids did was rape his mind with the haunting cackles. He would stand for it no longer.

The boy exploded in a massive amount of energy. So massive it cause his rivals to gasp in shock. His hair stood higher, his energy electrified throughout his entire body. He ascended to that level of Super Saiyajin only the love of his past could achieve. In his rage and sorrow, Trunks became a Super Saiyajin 2.

“Fuck you both…. FUCK YOU BOTH!!!!”

An extraordinary amount of ki surrounded his sword and he slashed it. He slashed it right at Juunanagou’s abdomen, and the bewildered android exploded. Juuhachigou stared hopelessly at nothing. She was shocked beyond reason. Was that her brother that was just killed? Was that Trunks that just killed him? It couldn’t be. Not the whiny little Saiyajin kid with that purple hair who was once all too dependent on the help of his other comrade. Not the kid whom tried so many times to kill them before, but always failed. Not Trunks. Trunks had no right to do this. He said… he said he wanted to die, not kill.

My God, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation
My God, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation

“Kyyyaaaa!!!” he howled slashing Juuhachigou in half the same way he did her brother. And once she exploded from the large amount of ki and cut wires, Trunks dropped his sword and began to shake.

“No… why.. ?” He said, his hands shaking with regret; his head shaking for his stupidity. They were his last ticket; the androids were his way to the underworld. He gave up being with Gohan… just to kill those Kami forsaken bastards that constantly haunted his dreams.

He fell to his knees, completely surrounded by the buzzing circuits that was once his two biggest nightmares. He was supposed to die by their hands, and they died by his. Now not only was everyone he loved dead, now everyone he hated was dead. His life went from having no meaning to himself to now having no meaning to anyone else. He was now a true and absolute worthless being.

“I WANT TO DIE!!!”

My God, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation
My God, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation

“Good work Trunks,” said an elderly sounding voice from in front of him. He didn’t want to lift his head to see whom he was talking to. He was too consumed in his own grief and stupidity to want to even move. Then again, he was slightly curious to see who left could possibly know his name.

“Who are you?” He said with those painfully familiar tears shimmering down his pale lifeless face. The old woman floating on her crystal ball floated up to him and bowed.

“I am Baba the fortune teller. Surely Gohan or Bulma has told you about me.”

Trunks thought hard for a minute, trying to figure out if she was mentioned at all. He couldn’t quite recall since he wasn’t in much of a mood to be trotting down memory lane. So he just shrugged seeing as he didn’t really know the answer.

“Oh don’t give me that. You are acting positively pathetic right now.”

Trunks bared his teeth angrily and thrust himself off of the ground.

“CAN YOU REALLY BLAME ME??” Trunks barked out, shooting an ice cold glance with eyes to match. Though they matched the same stunning color Bulma’s once were, they still had the same harsh, callous, fire burning through them that his father once had. “EVERYONE I LOVE IS DEAD!!!”

“I know that,” Baba said frantically. “I also know each and every single one of them personally. I’m Muten Roshi’s sister.”

“You’re… ” Now Trunks knew exactly who she was. “Y-you’re the one who can bring people back from the dead.”

“Only once for one day,” Baba said so Trunks wouldn’t get his hopes too high.

“I-I thought you were dead.”

“No no child, I’ve just been hiding out in the underworld. Enma-daio is a close friend of mine.”

Getting excited, Trunks leapt to his feet and stared at her longingly. “Please ask him to let me die.”

“Its not his place to do that I’m afraid. I’m also afraid that if you want to see your mother and Gohan again you cannot commit suicide. Suicide is a sin, and you’ll go right to hell for it.”

“Come on, I killed the androids. Can I please be awarded with death?”

“Well I never. Why, Goku… ”

“I’M NOT GOKU!!!” Trunks bellowed out to the old woman. He was fed up with all of this crap. Fed up with life, fed up with being told no all the time. He may have been half Saiyajin, but he was half human as well. And wasn’t it his human right to be happy. Living was not going to make him happy. It just wasn’t going to cut it with him, no sir.

“Trunks, you should calm down and listen to yourself. You’re asking to die, that’s an insane question.”

“I don’t care. I want to be with Gohan. I’m in love with him,” he said with a sob. “I love him.”

My wounds cry for the grave
My soul cries for deliverance

“Why did you shoot down your time machine then?”

“Because, Gohan and I are soul mates. Past Gohan needs to be with my past self, just like I need my Gohan.”

“Does he know you’re in love with him?”

Then it hit Trunks like a ton of bricks. Gohan didn’t know. If he were to have gotten himself killed, would Gohan deny him in the afterworld? Just because past Gohan liked him, didn’t exactly mean….

Trunks shook his head. “Bring him to me. I want to ask him.”

“And if he says no?”

“Then I’ll just kill myself… and be with my father down in hell.”

“Your choice, but I think it’ll be fair to tell you that Vegeta isn’t in hell.” Before Trunks could respond, Baba had disappeared into the underworld right before his very eyes. Now he had no choice. Gohan would either love him the same way he loved him, or any chance of any kind of happiness he could’ve had would be denied for him. His afterlife would be just as painful as his life now.

It didn’t take long before Baba returned with the man he hadn’t seen in so many years. The tall, brave warrior who was nearly identical to Son Goku. The same thick frame, those large very warm obsidian eyes that seamed to stare right through him and touch his soul. Gohan… was here.

“Hi Trunks,” he said with that same cheerful Son tone. “You’ve sure grown a lot, kid.”

“I’m… not a kid,” he said laughing while clutching tightly to Gohan. Trunks soaked Gohan’s shirt with tears of joy and the taller demi-Saiyajin stroked his back for comfort. Gohan truly was the only one Trunks could ever cry so much in front of.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” the witch like woman said floating off which left Gohan and Trunks standing in the middle of nowhere, embracing one another like nobody’s business.

“Gomen’nasai Trunks.”

“Gohan,” said the vulnerable warrior. Trunks pulled back and looked up at his former mentor. He wanted to cry more, but he was out of energy. He felt as if he could pass out at any minute, and he felt suddenly like his heart stopped. “Gohan…. I lo…. ”

And like that, Trunks passed out in the arms of Gohan. His heart had taken too much strain, and in too much fear that Gohan would deny him, his overworked heart gave out, and he faded fast.

“He’s gone now, Baba.”

Will I be denied Christ
Tourniquet
My suicide

“Gohan… I lo… Gohan,” Trunks said waking up in the face of Enma-daio. He couldn’t believe where he was. He… he was in the underworld. He could see heaven, hell, snake way…. everything. Everything he wanted was here. He finally died. But… Gohan…

“Trunks Briefs,” the thirty foot ogre boomed in his mighty voice. Mighty that was, if you weren’t Son Goku. “You’re a pure hearted soul who was killed of natural causes. You have the choice to keep your body and go to a place where special heroes are kept for eternity, the choice to give up your body and go to heaven, or you can go to hell. Where would you like to go?”

“Where is Son Gohan? I want to go where he is.”

“I’m right here, Trunks,” Gohan said dropping to the ground in front of his friend. “Welcome to being dead.”

“Gohan,” the boy said pulling the Son into a hug again. This time however, Trunks didn’t cry. He was with Gohan at last and that’s all that mattered. “I never want to leave you again… I.. I love you so much.”

Gohan smiled and nodded allowing Trunks to embrace him for as long as he needed to… or at least as long as Enma would allow it before barking out something uncalled for.

“I know, I’ve always known,” he said letting Trunks go and started leading him to a spot in the sky where they wouldn’t have an audience. “He’ll stay with me, Enma-sama.”

He’ll stay with me, were Trunks’s initial thoughts. Was Gohan accepting him as his lover? Did Gohan have the same feelings for him?

“Gohan… you… ”

“For years, Trunks. You were just so young, and I knew I was going to die long before you.”

“You just… ”

“… didn’t want you to get hurt.” Right then and there Trunks let go of all his doubt, pain, and sorrow and let himself be lost in this moment. This moment he’d waited for all his life, but was only able to receive in his afterlife. He wanted to do something. Hug Gohan again, kiss him, make love to him. Instead, he asked a question, seeing as he was too stunned to move at the moment.

“Why did you apologize before… you know… ”

“For resting the burden of taking out the androids on your shoulders. I didn’t have a choice though, with my arm missing and… ”

“Twenty,” Trunks said interrupting Gohan with a slightly amused tone to his voice. “Mother built a time machine, and I traveled twenty years into the past to warn your dad about the androids.”

“You did? Then why wasn’t the future altered. Don’t tell me… ”

“I won’t, because your father didn’t fail. He did die… but he died saving the world. And I don’t know why it didn’t change. I guess you really can’t change the past, at least not in the way mother intended.”

“Why did you interrupt my explanation to tell me this then?”

“Because, I find it ironic that even though you failed with one arm, your past self didn’t. He fucked up the same arm too.”

“You can’t be serious,” Gohan said sounding peeved. But after that he began to laugh. Trunks followed him in the laughter soon after, enjoying the serenity of their first romantic moment.

“By the way, where is my father?” Trunks asked, since silence was just too awkward for this kind of moment.

“He’s where we’re going. A place where all the universe’s greatest heroes and heroines train together for eternity. My dad apparently had to pull a lot of strings to get him in.”

“The man’s a miracle worker,” Trunks said followed by a laugh. Once it became quiet between them, Trunks latched on to the arm Gohan had once lost and regained, and leaned against his shoulder.

“Imagine what our father’s will say when they see us like this,” Gohan said flying slowly toward their destiny.

Trunks sighed. “I don’t really care. As long as you never leave me again, I’ll be happy.”

“Count on it.” And there sealed the tragic tourniquet of Trunks’s hectic life. No more pain, no more tears, no more wishing he was dead. He was dead now, and he found what he sought out more then anything in this world, completion .