"Activating my gate created a feedback loop," Bulma explained tersely, glaring down at the console as if it had offended her. "The power that came through into this plane was only a fraction of what was actually generated. The resulting explosion should have blown whoever was on the other side of their gate to kingdom come." She pounded her fist into her other hand, a vindictive grin on her face.
Shiatar raised her head. "I wouldn't bet on that."
Bulma turned to regard her. "It would have been enough, at least, to damage their equipment. That will buy us a little more time."
Shiatar lowered her head again and said nothing. Bulma was right; it would buy time, but not much. I haven't even learned to become a Super Saiya-jin yet, she thought angrily to herself. Would there be enough time for her to do so?
Her sensei turned finally, and Shiatar felt the barely-contained rage seething in his aura. "They almost came through this time," Trunks said coldly. "You took a great risk, Kaasan."
Bulma put her hands on her hips and regarded her son with an expression that was just as cold. "It was a risk that had to be taken," she snapped at him. "Shiatar's not ready yet, and who knows what might have come through that gate? It might be more than even you can handle."
Trunks snorted and Shiatar frowned, focusing on him. It was the closest she'd ever seen him come to pure arrogance. Bulma, apparently, didn't like it.
"Trunks." Shiatar started at the same time that Trunks did; the human woman's face had contorted to an expression of utter fury, her shoulders hunched and blue eyes almost glowing as she fixed them on her son. The look of shock and consternation on Trunks' face would have been amusing if the sight of Bulma's rage hadn't disturbed Shiatar on a deeper level. "That kind of foolishness is exactly what got your father killed. I will not lose you because your ego is bigger than your IQ!" She advanced on her son, and Trunks blanched; after a moment, he lowered his head.
Shiatar watched in amazement. The demi-Saiyin could kill his mother without even touching her, and yet here he stood, head bowed in acquiescence, even in front of his student. Did he care for her so much? Did all children love their mothers so? For a moment, she wondered if this display meant that Trunks was not as strong as she'd first assumed. She's his weakness, she thought to herself in amazement. If anyone ever got to her, he'd be almost helpless. Like when she'd taken Bulma hostage in the regeneration tank chamber---he'd built up a tremendous amount of power, but he hadn't attacked. Standoff. But, she thought again, remembering the look on his face that day, the gods help anyone who had the stupidity to hurt Bulma . . . On second thought, perhaps Trunks' concern for his mother was not as much of a weakness as she'd first thought. First of all, she could not envision Trunks bowing his head to anyone except Bulma. Second, a threat to his mother could backfire on any opponent; if anger truly was the key to Saiyan power, then the eruption that would result from any harm to Bulma would be truly terrifying to behold.
The tableau before her held for only a second, then Trunks raised his head. Acquiescent or not, he had not backed down. "If I should not underestimate the dangers from Shiatar's enemies, then neither should you. In the time that you came back here to try to create this feedback loop, anyone could have come through that gate. You should have run. At least until I could get here."
Bulma subsided, acquiescing herself. "Maybe you're right," she said softly, with a little smile; Shiatar got the impression that she was pleased with her son. "But you weren't there, and I did what I thought was right. Please try to remember that I took care of myself and you when you were a little tailed eating machine in diapers, not a great warrior. I'm not completely helpless."
Trunks sighed, and smiled. They were friends again. Shiatar found herself envious of their bond, and looked away as she pushed herself off of the wall. Would she have had that kind of closeness with her own mother, if that unknown woman had lived? She would never know.
"It seems like things will be quiet again for a while, at least," she said, and mother and son turned to look at her. "If you need me, I'll be resting in my room." She felt their eyes on her as she left.
Shiatar had been preparing to practice moving to Super Saiya-jin when she'd looked up to see her sensei blasting overhead like a living missile, raising such a wake that thunder from the clouds he was shredding resounded throughout the countryside. Realizing that only some sort of emergency could provoke such a reaction in the normally stoic warrior, she'd decided to follow, and together they'd found Bulma leaning on her console in the DITMIX chamber, shaking with the adrenaline aftermath of her battle against the foreign gate. Now that the emergency was past, Shiatar realized that she was too tired to even attempt to practice again, and after making her way back to her room and taking a shower, she collapsed again on her bed, sleeping like the dead.
*****
Shiatar awoke with a start, formless, half-remembered dreams slipping away into nothingness as she sat up, blinked and looked around, surprised to find that she was shaking and that her sheets were wringing with sweat. She leaned forward, resting her head on her hands. What was happening to her? She hadn't had disturbing dreams in years; she thought she'd left them behind. And although she couldn't even recall the content of this one, the feelings left over were very clear.
Sighing, she climbed out of the bed's damp sheets and went over to the window, leaning her head against the glass pane. She'd never get to sleep again; she never could after this kind of waking. It was obvious what had caused the dream: Trunks' talk of triggers had stirred ghosts that she'd thought long exorcised. The return of the dreams could mean only one thing: it was time for her to pull out the old memories and face them again, and perhaps this time she could put them away for good.
She shuddered, and closed her eyes. She didn't want to face them; it had been hard enough the first time. But if what her teacher had told her was true, she would never achieve Super Saiya-jin until she found a way to use the horrible memories. It was ironic, really, that there could be power in such terrible things. Perhaps there was some truth to the old saying: "No pain, no gain."
But perhaps there was only pain, sometimes . . .
Opening the window, she took only one glance back at the suddenly comforting familiarity of her room, and then flew out into the night air.
It wasn't far; geography in this world seemed to mirror that in hers exactly. She'd found it amusing, at first, that the Capsule Corporation headquarters occupied the same spot as Vejiita's palace in her world, but now that dimensional portals kept popping up all over the building, she was no longer amused. Bulma's bravery had given them all a few days' or weeks' grace. The human woman was right, too---Trunks was powerful, but there was no telling what weapons Vejiita would bring to bear in his quest to destroy her. She would put nothing past the Saiyan prince. And Trunks would not be immune to Vejiita's fury; in her world Vejiita had no son, and would never accept a half human offspring anyhow. For a moment she tried to guess which of the two Super Saiya-jin was more powerful, and finally had to give up; she didn't know enough about either to make an accurate guess. She prayed that there would never be a need to find out. Father versus son . . . it stirred a sense of deep wrongness within her. No; Vejiita was her enemy, not Trunks'.
And she had other demons to exorcise first.
Slowing, she circled her destination, below; the sight was as stunning in this world as it had been in hers. The Sunset Niichuan falls, or whatever they were called on this earth, had been known for centuries as one of the great wonders of the world, the highest and most magnificent waterfall on the planet. Great jagged stones, glistening with mist, broke through the river just before it plummeted, thousands of feet, into the shadows; she couldn't see the base of the falls, but she could hear its muted roar echoing up from the chasm worn into the rock by the falling water over millenia. An impossibly far distance below, the great spray from the base of the falls bent the pale night radiance into a lovely moonbow; when she curved to land on one of the granite ledges that projected above the falls, she could smell the spray even from here, sweet and fragrant like nothing she'd ever scented before---or since.
It was the most sickening smell she'd ever experienced.
"Ohhh . . . damn you, you Saiya-jin son of a bitch!" she shouted, hearing her own voice echo back to her from three cliff faces, muffled by the falling water. "I killed you---get out of my mind! Get out of my life! Why can't you leave me alone, even now?"
The pain . . . the self-loathing swelled suddenly, and she fell to her knees, overwhelmed by it, consumed by it. The memories surged through her, and it was all she could do not to curl up into a shaking, whimpering ball, just as she had that night long ago, after it was all over. The smell of the falls was all around her, just as it had been that night. She hated that smell; it was the smell of her shame and her weakness. Shuddering and crying silently, she bent over her knees, holding her head in her hands as if she could control the memories by sheer force. She shouldn't have come here; she'd avoided the place in her own world for good reason. But she had to face what she could of the memory; that was the only way she would ever defeat it.
"Shiatar."
She started; the unexpected voice threw her back to another night and another world, when she'd heard someone speak her name . . . but this voice was not the voice of memory. Sitting up slowly on her knees, she made herself turn, half-afraid of who she would see behind her. But it was only Trunks, floating a meter or so above the ledge she kneeled on. At first relief flowed through her, then shame; the tear-streaks must be clearly visible on her face. She'd never shown such weakness before another person before, and to show it to her teacher . . . gods, had she deteriorated so much from what she used to be?
"What are you doing out here?" he asked her quietly, the breeze from the falls lifting his pale hair away from his face.
Taking a deep breath to get a hold on herself, she sat up a bit more and smiled a little at him. "I could say the same thing to you. You followed me?"
He nodded, his face as expressionless as ever. Irrationally, she found his aloofness comforting; it was much easier to bear than pity or concern. She turned to face the falls again, her back to him. Perhaps because he made no attempt to question her or approach, she felt a sudden urge to talk to him, tell him everything. She'd never told another living soul . . . but perhaps this, too, was necessary. It was a purging of sorts, that she sought, after all.
"I came out here to think," she said softly, knowing that the breeze would carry her voice. "It's time for me to clean house, dig some skeletons out of my closet and hang them out to dry." She lowered her head; Trunks was silent behind her. She hoped he'd stay that way.
"I told you that I was an arena slave, on my world. That was the position into which I was sold; for a demi-Saiyin child, it was both an honor to be chosen for the arena, and a death-sentence. It's a sign of how thoroughly we were brainwashed, I suppose, those of us who were raised in the slave orphanage, that I was happy---happy!" She laughed a little. "Happy to get chosen. It meant that I wouldn't have to spend the rest of my life in the mines, breaking down mountains for the materials the Saiya-jin stole from the earth, or as some warrior's living practice droid. Or in the pleasure-houses for the soldiers who didn't want fragile human women. The arena meant that I had at least a chance to distinguish myself, to prove that I had the mettle to be more than a slave. I was proud, even as a child." She smiled in reminiscence.
"My master was just one of the Saiyan soldiers who kept demi-Saiyin as fighters; he was kinder than most, in that he didn't kill those who lost. He'd won a lot of money on underdog winners. So his trainers put me through hell." She glanced back at him, and smiled. "You're too gentle with me; I got a beating every time I did something wrong or questioned my trainers. If one of them was in charge of me now, I'd have been a Super Saiya-jin---or dead---days ago." He regarded her without reply, the moon casting his face into shadow. Comforted again, she turned back to the falls.
"By the time I was thirteen, I was ready to fight in the arena. They started me off in junior matches, against other fighters near my age; I lost several times, at first. But my trainers had seen potential in me, and they told my master; he decided to let me live. I paid him back for that favor a hundred times over when I finally learned the way of the arena and began to win. I was a perfect cash-cow. Look at me; I'm small, and female---there weren't many girls in the arena, certainly not my size. People tended to underestimate me and bet against me. I learned to use that, in the arena; I worked hard to become faster, stronger, better than anyone would expect, and I learned to hide my real strength. Even after I moved into the adult competitions and began to develop a reputation, it never failed; my opponents would take one look at me, and become overconfident. Some of them even laughed." She smiled to herself, a private and vicious smile that Trunks would never see. "They didn't laugh for long."
The wind shifted for a moment, and the roar of the falls increased; then the breeze subsided and she could speak again. "When I was fifteen, I was allowed to participate in the ultimate arena competitions, the Death Matches. I . . . I had to learn to kill. That was the rule of the Death Matches, the only rule: two warriors could enter the ring, but only one could leave. I didn't intend to be the one left on the ground." She closed her eyes, remembering how hard it had been, that first time, to kill her opponent. He'd been a good one, a strong warrior---but she'd been stronger. And she'd had no choice; if she would not kill him, then she would be killed by the arena guardians. She'd been quick about it, breaking his neck with one swift blow. She'd retched for an hour afterwards. "It was hard that first time, but it got easier. After a while, I didn't feel much of anything anymore. I lived---no. I existed to fight, and to kill. That was all there was for me. I . . ." She lowered her head, and smiled without humor. "Did you know that I was named for death? A shiatar is a kind of weapon, a short hand-blade that Saiyan executioners use. You swing it, so---" She demonstrated, by swinging the edge of her hand in a horizontal line, swiftly enough that her hand made a whistling sound as it moved through the air. "---and a person can be decapitated, if you use enough force. The other arena slaves, they made up a name for me. They called me the Hand of Death."
Images flowed through her mind: dozens of faces, frozen at the moment of death. She had always been quick. She didn't have the strength---or the sadism---to draw out their deaths for the pleasure of the crowd, as her master wished. He'd had her whipped for disobedience, but she'd held firm, and because she kept winning, he'd let her live.
"When I turned sixteen, I was entered in the greatest of the tournaments, the Warriors' Crucible Budokai. It was called that because of the hundreds who began the tournament, only one would win, a warrior purified by the combat, all of his---or her---weaknesses burned off in battle. We were told that the winner of the budokai would be accorded the greatest of honors, to us: the victor would be granted his freedom, and made into a soldier in the Saiyan army. It was more than most of us could ever hope for. We all heard the tales. They said that past winners had been forgiven their human blood, and allowed to serve as true warriors, with all of the rights that full Saiya-jin were granted. We heard that winners were given enough money to establish a house of their own; some even worked their way up through the ranks and earned status, and if they were good enough, they even came to the notice of the Prince and his Elite. I wanted to be one of those winners, so badly that I could taste it. I dreamed of impressing the Overlord, and becoming one of Vejiita's greatest warriors. It was the only thing that kept me strong throughout the competition, which dragged on for weeks. It helped me win, over and over again, even when the faces of those I'd killed began to blur together into a great red haze."
She gathered up a handful of gravel, and clenched in in her fist. "But I won. I won. Of all the warriors in the arena, I was the strongest."
The roaring of the crowds filled her ears, the shouting of the spectators: "Shiatar! Shiatar!" She looked up, and could almost see them, ranged around her along the stands that ringed the arena pit. She'd looked up from the corpse of the last finalist, and turned about to bask in their adulation, her bloody arms raised high. And greatly daring, she'd turned to face the far end of the arena, where within the curtained booth, the highest-ranking spectators had their seats. Because the final match of the Budokai was so popular, she'd expected to see some of the elite present, but she'd been stunned to look up into the darkly regal countenance of the heir to the mighty Saiyan empire, Prince Vejiita himself. He and two of his warriors, Radditz and Nappa, were there with him. And yet . . . she was the winner of the budokai, the only warrior to emerge from the savage crucible of the great battle. She might be nothing more than a halfbreed slave, but she was the greatest warrior of her kind, and nothing could take that away from her.
Walking to stand below the Prince's booth, she'd heard the crowd fall silent as she approached. The Prince's face had registered mild surprise, then amusement; Shiatar bowed deeply, then straightened proudly to say into the silence, "My prince, I offer the honor of my victory to you, and the glory of the Saiyan empire!" And she'd raised her fist in salute.
For a moment, amid the utter silence, the Prince had regarded her expressionlessly, his eyes boring into hers. And then, slowly, he'd smiled. The crowd's roar of elation had shaken the very stones of the arena.
Shiatar focused again on the present; the roar of the falls was very like the roar of the spectators that day. Glancing back at Trunks, she searched his face again; yes, he was definitely Vejiita's son. The same facial features, the same coldness . . . perhaps there was not the same cruelty in his rare smiles, or the same aura of coolly restrained savagery, resting just below the surface, but the resemblance was there. Now that she knew, she wondered how she'd missed it the first time. Trunks was his mother's son, but he had his father's eyes.
Looking away, she resumed her tale.
"I had impressed the Prince himself, the greatest of honors. As I left the arena, I had never in my life felt so strong, like nothing could ever stop me or stand in my way. The other slaves looked at me like I was a goddess, like I was the King himself. I loved it. It was the first time in my life that I'd ever felt proud of myself, the first time I'd ever been truly important, the first time that I'd ever liked what I was, respected myself. Even my master stood out of the way when I passed. There is no feeling in the world like being the best. Nothing at all can match it."
Behind her, a sound at last: a soft "hmmph" of agreement. Then silence again. She went on.
"A slave came to tell me that my presence had been requested in the palace. It was unheard of, you see, for a slave to be summoned there, even the winner of the budokai; I heard people murmuring even as they cheered when I walked down the main avenue of the capitol. Some were saying that the Prince himself would be the one to award me my freedom, some said that he must want to make me one of his elite. I'm sure there were other whispers, of the less pleasant fates that might await me, but I didn't hear them. The only thing I could hear, that day, was praise. I suppose I have the same capacity to be an arrogant ass as any Saiya-jin." She smiled, again without humor. Trunks, as usual, said nothing.
"So I came to the palace, and was shown into the throne chamber, where the entire court, it seemed, had assembled. Vejiita was there, with Nappa and Radditz, and Kakaloto stood to the right of the throne. I was so awed that all of my pride and confidence nearly failed me; I had dreamed for years of coming before these, the greatest of the Saiya-jin. Even the King, it was said, was not as powerful as Prince Vejiita. Kakaloto was nearly as strong, and the Overlord of Vejiita's favorite planet. Nappa was the commander of the army, although Vejiita was commander-in-chief; Radditz was Vejiita's minister of Intelligence, and master of the Inquisitors. They were names I'd heard my whole life, faces I'd seen in propaganda videos for years, but I'd never expected to meet them. I almost froze---which would have been a great mistake. Fortunately, I held on to my wits."
She'd had the sense to kneel there, in the throne room. Her boldness had been marginally permissible back in the ring, when she was flush with her victory; but in the palace she was keenly aware of her lowly status. On all sides, she had been surrounded by pure-blooded Saiya-jin, some of them waving their tails as an extra reminder that they were better than she. And the Elite, themselves, were present. Shiatar was not stupid. She knew when she could test the rigid rules, written and unspoken, that governed her society, and when to shut up and bow.
"Vejiita stood; he was smiling. I can still remember everything from that day, as if I was there.
"'Well, well,' he said. 'The greatest of the demi-Saiyin comes before me, after offering me her honor in the ring. A bold move. Stand, Ko Shiatar.'
"When I stood, he looked about, at his warriors. " 'Have you decided which one of you it is to be?' he asked them.
"Kakaloto just shook his head. 'I haven't the time for such things,' he said. Vejiita turned then to Nappa and Radditz.
"Nappa said, 'The last one was mine. My prince, perhaps you---?' But Vejiita just shook his head. 'She's not my type,' he said. 'Besides, she is demi-Saiyin, and beneath me.' So then Vejiita looked at Radditz. And Radditz nodded."
Shiatar closed her eyes tightly, trying to keep away the image that came into her mind anyway. Radditz's face when the Prince had asked his question: intent, hungry. She hadn't recognized the look at the time, but later, older and wiser, she had understood what she'd seen that day in the face of the warrior the humans called Radditz the Tormentor. Lust, and no simple desire; Radditz's eyes had been gleaming with the hunger to posess, to defeat, to break . . .
"Vejiita laughed. 'Of course, Radditz, I should have known. You break ones like her every day. She's yours.'
"Throughout this, I had stood watching, trying to understand what I was hearing. At the Prince's words, however, I suddenly understood at least a little of what was happening. And it shocked me to my core. So much that I forgot that I was a lowly demi-Saiyin, forgot that I was in the hall of the Prince.
"I stepped forward. 'Vejiita-sama!'
"He turned to look at me, and smiled. 'You did well in the arena,' he said. 'That is why I have decided to offer you the highest of honors. You will become mate to my warrior Radditz, and perhaps you will be lucky enough to bear his heir.'"
Shiatar clenched her fist, and felt the sharp edges of the gravel dig into her palm. "I was beyond shocked; I felt as if my whole world had been snatched from beneath me. Vejiita must have seen this on my face, because he laughed. 'Don't tell me you're another one who believed the rumor that tournament winners got riches and honors.' One look at my expression told him the truth, and he shook his head at my foolishness.
" 'You are demi-Saiyin,' he explained, as if I was a child. " 'Did you really think you were fit to walk among us? The Saiya-jin, the greatest warriors in the universe?' He held out his hands, and everyone in the court laughed also. When they stopped, he smiled at me again. 'You are fit only to bear the sons of true warriors. It is an honor, for one of your kind. Be glad, were you male, I would claim you for myself, as a sparring partner. For however long you survived.' He signalled then to some of the guards, and they came forward with a restraining collar; I was frozen in shock, and did not even resist as they put it around my neck.
"Then Vejiita nodded to Radditz, who stepped forward. 'Take her to my citadel,' Radditz said, still looking at me in that way that sent chills down my spine. 'Clean her up, and give her a chance to rest. She won the tournament today, after all.'
"The whole court was laughing as they took me away. I was taken to Radditz's citadel, which was here, by the falls. I was bathed and perfumed and dressed in strange clothes made of the richest material I'd ever seen. And they chained me, by my restraining collar, to Radditz's bed. He came to find me later that night."
Shiatar looked down at her hand and was abruptly surprised to see that she was bleeding, the gravel pieces driven into her palm and fingers. Reflexively she relaxed the hand and let the gravel fall, shaking the hand to clear the wounds. Behind her Trunks was silent still. She didn't turn to look at him. If she did, she would see Vejiita's face, sentencing her to become the brood mare of a sadist.
"There was nothing I could do, not with the restraining collar making me little better than a human in strength. When I realized that I couldn't fight him, I tried to at least goad him into knocking me out. But that didn't suit his purposes; he wanted me awake, you see. So he could see my face." A hand on her throat, tight enough to choke but just loose enough to keep her conscious. The sound of the waterfall coming in through the window, echoing in her ears and her mind; she'd focused on that sound to stay sane. His leering face above her, daring her to escape. The other hand . . .
Shiatar took a deep breath. "When it was over, he left, and one of the human servants came in to clean me up. She . . . she was kinder than any human has ever been to me. She held me when I cried, for the first time since I was a child, and she sang to me when I thought I might go mad. She told me that she'd had a child once, a demi-Saiyin like me, but the child was taken from her. I think I became that child, for just a few hours, to her. I know I wish she was my mother. I didn't even know her name, until after she was dead, and I was among the resistance. Chichi. They told me her name was Chichi.
"I asked her for her help, to kill myself. I would rather have died than let Radditz touch me again. But she gave me something else instead: hope. She was in the resistance, you see, and she told me how I could find them, if I could somehow escape from the citadel. I was skeptical at first; I was such a brainwashed fool, even then. But Chichi talked to me; she opened my eyes to the true horror of the Saiya-jin conquest, and what it had done not just to me, but to everyone, human and demi-Saiyin alike. It was like waking up from a long sleep; suddenly I realized the evil I'd perpetrated during my years in the arena. I remembered every face of every one of my own people I'd murdered. Murdered. I realized just how wrong I'd been to idolize the sadistic, evil bastards who'd conquered my world. I truly hadn't noticed what had been going on around me my whole life, or at least I'd never questioned it. Now, though . . . I was ready to fight. I was ready to do anything to destroy the rule of beasts like Radditz. And his kennel-master, Vejiita."
She climbed to her feet, feeling the wind lift the hair that had escaped her braid, and turned to face the impassive silhouette of Trunks. "Don't get me wrong," she added. "It was more than some high-minded idealism that took hold of me then, and now. It's not just about freeing my people and the humans. It's about revenge." She clenched her fists again, and felt fresh blood flow from the injured one, staining her fingers. "It's about killing the bastards that hurt me, that took my pride and my honor and my spirit and broke them and flung them in my face!" Blood was running down her arm now, beading and falling into the gravel at her feet; she barely felt it. She could feel something else now, working its way up from the dark pit within herself where she kept it, forcing its way up toward her heart. For a moment, the rage was too great for her to contain; her other hand began to bleed as her fighting aura materialized suddenly, stirring the loose gravel of the ledge into a wild, stinging whirlwind that whipped about her. Radditz's face flashed through her mind, and the rage swelled, rushing to the fore---
No! Not again!
She had to get control of this, or it would happen again . . . Fiercely she fought, trying to banish the terrible, surging fury. It didn't go easily, and she clenched her teeth, exerting the will that had sustained her through years of hardship; slowly, slowly it ebbed, and faded away. For a moment she stood, gasping for breath, then, looking down at her hands, she forced the fingers to unclench.
After a few minutes, she felt enough in control again to straighten and face Trunks. He---of course---hadn't moved, even when the whirlwind had encompassed him; he could be a statue for all that he showed signs of life. She sighed, and turned away again; now not only had he witnessed her moment of weakness, he'd seen her almost lose control. Her shoulders slumped.
"I call myself a warrior," she murmured, "but I've never been able to master control. And my lack of control is another mark of shame on my soul." She sighed. "Radditz came back the next night. But by then I had made up my mind; he would not . . . use me again. I'd die first. I'd kill him with my bare hands, first.
"When he came in, I fought again, harder than I've ever fought before. I still had the collar on, of course, so it wasn't much of a fight. But when it looked like he would win this time, I . . . I was so afraid, I got so angry that I . . . I kind of blacked out. I'm still not sure of exactly what happened. But when I woke up . . ." She strained to remember; she had been groggy and half-conscious during those first few moments. "When I woke up, Radditz's citadel lay in ruins around me. My collar was off; I don't know when it was taken off. Radditz was down, too, as dead and broken as his citadel. Even the falls had been destroyed; somehow the cliff that created the falls had been leveled, and where there had once been a waterfall, there was now a crater."
She lowered her head. "And also in the ruins . . . was Chichi. She . . . had been crushed by the rubble."
Shiatar did not mention that she'd torn through the rubble to find the woman, screaming and crying incoherently . . . nor did she mention her own awful, grieving silence when she had finally found the limp form of the gentle human. She took a deep, shuddering breath, fighting back tears, and went on.
"It wasn't until a little later, when I had found my way to the resistance and gone into hiding, that I began to understand what had happened. All my life, I've had a horrible temper." She smiled, and glanced at him over her shoulder. "I think it's a Saiyan thing; I also think you understand. But I'd never lost that temper before, not the way that I had that night. I think . . . there's some kind of power in me, that only comes out when I'm angry. I don't know if it's Super Saiya-jin power or not; I couldn't reach that power later, when I needed it against Vejiita. Not even when he killed my friends, and I got angry again. Whatever the power is, it's not controllable, it's a random force that just . . . kills indiscriminately. Enemies . . . and friends." She looked down at her lacerated hands. "I hate this power, whatever it is. It's been no use to me, beyond killing Radditz. And even then, it took the only real friend I've ever had. I don't want such power if I have to pay that kind of price to use it."
She turned back to him, regarding him levelly. "That's why I have to control it. For all I know, I could lose it one day and blow the Capsule Corporation headquarters to hell, and take Bulma and maybe even you with it. I won't allow that to happen again." For a moment, pain and grief surged through her, and she clenched her fists again, turning her head to the side and squeezing her eyes shut. "Chichi . . . she was to me what your Gohan was to you, I think, if only for a short time. Only in my case, it's my fault that she's dead. Just another murder on my conscience."
She looked at him then, turning her head so quickly that her braid whipped out behind her. "So you want to know about a trigger, sensei? That's my trigger. When I want to get angry all I have to do is visualize Radditz's face. But I don't know if you really want to wake up the power that comes with my anger. I know I don't. So maybe . . . maybe becoming a Super Saiya-jin is beyond me, after all." Suddenly weary, she dropped her hands to her sides and lowered her eyes. "Maybe I'll never be able to defeat Vejiita. And maybe . . . maybe I'm not a warrior at all."
Silence fell, broken only by the occasional gusting of the wind, and the monotonous roar of the waterfall. Shiatar stood, her mind for once blank; it felt as if she'd just vomited up years' worth of accumulated foulness. Speaking her painful memories aloud had left her heart an empty shell.
Slowly, Trunks lowered himself to stand on the ledge with her, facing her bowed head. He said nothing for a long while. Then:
"Well," he said in his soft voice. "It seems that you've been honest, at least."
Shiatar looked up, frowning. What did he mean?
Trunks folded his arms and regarded her, and suddenly Shiatar was struck by the look in his eyes. Although they were the wrong color, they looked, suddenly, the way Vejiita's eyes had, on the day that he'd made a gift of her to Radditz . . .
"It's clear that you're right. You aren't cut out to be a Super Saiya-jin. You aren't even cut out to be a warrior. So you're free to go."
Shiatar felt it again: the awful sinking sensation in the pit of her belly, as if the stood on a rapidly falling elevator. As if the world had been snatched from under her feet. "W-What?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
Trunks put his hands on his hips, and lifted his head. In the moonlight, his eyes glittered cruelly. "You're free to go," he repeated. "I can't teach you; you've said it yourself. So go. I'm not your teacher any longer. I just wish you hadn't wasted so much of my time."
Shiatar stared at him, and the wind rose to a brisk, chilly howl between them.
