Trunks stood in the Room of Spirit and Time, looking out over its vast, empty landscape. A wind blew from nowhere, stirring his hair---it was short again, as it had been when he was younger, but he thought nothing of it. He brushed recalcitrant strands from his eyes and ignored the wind. He liked the Room's emptiness; it appealed to him on some level. There were no dangers here to threaten him; no ruins to mock what had once been; no pitiful, scrawny human survivors to accuse him with haunted eyes: why didn't you stop them sooner? Why did you let them destroy our world first?
A step behind him; he turned. Vejiita stood there, dressed in full Saiya-jin warrior regalia, with a long cloak thrown over his armor to signify his rank. Trunks frowned. This was not the Vejiita he'd gone back in time to meet, the Vejiita who had spent months hating his own son for being better than him; the warrior who stood before him now was older, and there was a strange serenity about his black eyes that stirred the hairs on the back of Trunks' neck. The Vejiita he'd met would never have looked like this---no living person could look so . . . ethereal. So at peace with himself. This Vejiita, he sensed suddenly, was the Vejiita of his own timeline, the one who had died long ago, when he'd been an infant. He had never met this Vejiita. This was his own true father.
Father regarded son in silence, as the wind blew again; Vejiita's thick hair barely moved. Trunks was the first to break the silence. "Tousan? Is that . . . you?"
Vejiita's lips curved in an enigmatic smile. "You have your mother's gift for intelligent questions," he said. Trunks was too awed to flush in embarassment. This was his father. His father's . . . spirit . . .
Vejiita raked him with an up and down stare. "You look like her," he said, annoyance coloring his tone. "And I'd hoped you'd be taller."
Trunks found his tongue and his wits. "I'm taller than you."
A nod. "I suppose I should be glad for that. My family's always been short." He snorted. "I should have found a taller woman. But then, I could never stand for anyone to be more than me in any way---taller, better, whatever."
Trunks could only stare. Vejiita turned away and walked a few steps, his cloak billowing out behind him in the breeze. Abruptly the Prince turned to regard his son over his shoulder.
"You're not like me," he said. "Your mother's taught you to think of others besides yourself. It's made you stronger than I would have thought." He smiled, a little wickedly. "But don't tell her I said that."
Trunks frowned. "Did you love my mother?" he blurted. He needed to know this; the question had plagued him his whole life . . .
Vejiita's smile faded, and his eyes dropped. "More than I intended, perhaps. Less than I should have. If I'd truly loved her, I'd have waited until I was ready to face the Cyborgs. I might have lived then, and you would have grown up in a happier world." But then he folded his arms, regarding Trunks. "It's past now, isn't it? You avenged me. Besides, I don't have much time here, and I'm sure you don't want to waste it with questions you already know the answers to."
Trunks stared. The man before him was nothing like he'd expected. The Vejiita he'd met in the past would never have admitted his feelings for Bulma---and Trunks wouldn't have dared to ask the question. What was it about this man that was so different?
As if he'd read Trunks' mind, Vejiita turned. "When you've been dead for twenty years, you'll start to see things differently, too," he said coolly. "Don't think I would have been like this if I'd lived."
Trunks lowered his eyes, thinking suddenly of Shiatar and her world. "I don't know," he said to his father. "Having a wife and son changed you from what you were when you first came to Earth. You could have been a lot worse."
Vejiita walked toward him suddenly, and Trunks looked up, startled, into his father's knowing smile. Vejiita clapped him on one shoulder. "You could do worse, too, than by that little hellion you've taken under your wing," he said. "She's got guts, and she's proud. I like her."
Trunks did flush this time, startled. "I . . . that is to say . . ."
Vejiita chuckled, and dropped his hand. "I can't advise you in such things," he said. "But I can advise you in this: if you're going to teach her, you'll have to hurt her. It's the only way."
Trunks frowned. "What---?"
Vejiita cut him off. "Shut up, boy," he said, not unkindly. "I hurt people for years before you were born. That's how I learned. There's power in using pain to teach, when it's necessary; it can force someone to make changes they'd never make. She doesn't need some hand-holder for a teacher; she's a warrior, and she's stronger than you think. She's survived a lot worse than anything you could ever do to her." He folded his arms. "You learned more from your hardships than you would have ever learned from me, if I'd taught you."
Trunks frowned uncomfortably, putting his hands in his pockets. "I learned a lot from you anyway," he said, thinking of the younger version of his father he'd met in the past.
"Ah." Vejiita nodded, understanding. "I suppose so, in a way." He walked past Trunks, toward the single object that dotted the monotonous horizon of the Room's dimension, the house. A few feet away, he stopped.
"Trunks, you are the last of my bloodline," Vejiita said, not turning. "The last, in fact, of the Saiya-jin. We were a proud, great people. Whatever else we were, we were that." He turned, and pointed at Trunks suddenly with a gloved hand, and Trunks started.
"The Saiya-jin need not end with you, Trunks. Remember that. You would be King, now, if things were different. You have no people and no kingdom, but you still have a responsibility. How you choose to fulfil that responsibility is your concern." Vejiita lowered his arm, and smiled with a hint of wickedness. "I suspect you'll have help in the matter, if you play your cards right."
Trunks frowned in confusion, and took a step toward his father. But something was wrong; suddenly Vejiita had become hard to see, his form growing transparent until Trunks could see the house in the distance through Vejiita's chest. He gasped, and Vejiita looked down at himself mildly.
"My time must be up," he said. "I suppose I should be glad for this much. Remember what I said, Trunks." His voice was growing faint as well, more echo than presence, and Trunks stepped forward again.
"Otousan!"
Vejiita scowled in irritation. "Go on, damn it. You've got a lot of work ahead of you. You're ready for it, of course; you're my son, after all. I'll see you again . . . and tell your mother . . ." He smiled, his face the only remaining visible part of him. "Tell your mother that I still think she's ugly."
And then he was gone.
Trunks sat up in the stillness of his room, the sheets slipping down to his midriff. For a moment he was disoriented not to be weighed down by the oppressive gravity of the Room, startled to see something other than white space around him, and then he relaxed: it had been just a dream. Or had it?
Disturbed, Trunks climbed out of his bed, crossing the room to stand before the window. It was a clear night; the moonlight poured down onto the countryside, turning it into a silver-and-black marbled landscape, and he leaned against the windowsill to gaze out at it. It had been the most vivid and realistic dream he could remember; he could still hear the billowing of Vejiita's cloak in the breeze, see the ever-so-slight stirring of his father's hair. Had it really been a dream? Or had he touched, for just a moment, something beyond his reality . . .?
Something flickered against the nightscape, and he focused on it, the dream abruptly forgotten. He'd spent far too many nights watching for the approach of danger from the sky not to be alert when he saw movement there. But it was only Shiatar, flying slowly from the Capsule Corporation toward the west, skimming low over the trees.
At first relaxing again, he then frowned, watching her figure dwindle into the distance. He thought he'd been the only restless sleeper. What was she doing out at this hour? He'd planned to get her to try moving to the next level tomorrow---if she got no rest tonight, she'd be useless for training. He folded his arms. She wasn't stupid; if she chose to squander her chance to rest, she'd have to face the consequences. He'd go no easier on her because she was tired.
But . . . it was precisely because she'd been so tired earlier, and because she knew better, that he began to suspect that there was much more to her midnight jaunt than mere restlessness.
He sighed. He'd hoped to get some sleep himself tonight. After putting his clothes on, he opened the window and followed her.
He found her near the great western waterfall, crouched on a ledge, and as soon as she turned to face him, he realized that his decision to follow her had been a wise one. It seemed that she was ready, at last, to talk about the pain he'd sensed hidden within her; what had provoked her candor, he did not know, but he knew enough to realize that this was a critical moment. He suspected that on some level, she was aware that she must use the power of her dark past if she was to ever tap the power of the Super Saiya-jin, and he sensed instinctively the difficulty of her confession as she began to talk. It was clear in the softness of her tone, barely audible above the distant sound of the falls, and the utter lack of emotion in her voice. He might even be the first person she'd told her story to, but he suspected that her confidence had little to do with him; like any great internal pressure, Shiatar's pain could only be held in for so long. Whether he had come to hear her story or not, it would have come out anyway.
And as she told her tale, he finally understood just how wrong Shiatar's world had gone, and the magnitude of the trials this young halfbreed woman had endured. He stayed silent as she told of the deadly tournament she had won, the slow erosion of her soul that had transformed a child into a killer, the development of her fierce warrior's spirit, and the breaking of that spirit at the hands of Radditz. He stayed silent as she told of the death of her mother-surrogate and friend, her world's Chichi, by accident at her own hands. He said nothing throughout her tale, because he was so horrified by what she had endured that he could say nothing.
Shiatar, he realized, was a great deal stronger than he had ever suspected. She had survived a betrayal of all her dreams, as well as a brutal rape that had broken her, but had managed to put herself back together stronger than before, and used her new strength to remedy the wrongs she had committed in her former life. She would never respond well to expressions of sympathy or concern on his part; for him to even offer that type of response would trivialize her achievements. Abruptly he felt a fierce admiration for her, for her spirit, her determination to achieve in spite of such adversity---she, far more than her enemies, deserved the title of warrior. Both in and outside of her arena, she'd shown greater strength than anyone he'd ever known.
Could I have endured what she has? he thought to himself. I grew up in a world that might as well have been hell, I lost Gohan, and died before I defeated my nemesis---but she's been through the same kind of thing. And she's done it completely alone. I had Okaasan, and Gohan, and in the past I even had friends; except for Chichi, she's had no one. He watched her as she faced him, her head bowed with the weight of her pain, and suddenly found himself wanting to reach out to her, hold her, protect her from the terrible shadows that tormented her. He almost gasped, so startled was he by this reaction. What's happening to me?
But he stifled the strange urge. Shiatar did not need comfort. She neither wanted it nor would appreciate it if offered. "Maybe I'll never defeat Vejiita," she'd said. "And maybe I'm not a warrior at all." No; it was not a friend that Shiatar needed. She needed . . . a teacher. She needed to access her hidden power, find a way to use it; only by gaining the power to match her strength of spirit would she be able, finally, to defeat the doubts that lingered in her mind. For a moment he closed his eyes, and almost lost his will; there was only one way that he could think of to help her reach her power, and to do it he would have to hurt her almost as badly as her Vejiita and Radditz had. Could he do it? What kind of man was he, that he could hurt someone . . .
. . . someone he cared about . . .?
He shuddered, and deliberately pushed that thought away. He didn't dare dwell on that right now. Inadvertently, his student had given him the key he needed to help her reach even greater heights, to help her find the power that she could not reach alone. He had to use that key. If it worked, if he was successful, she would understand the pain he would have to cause her.
Yes, whispered a voice in the back of his mind, but will she forgive you for it---?
Abruptly, his father's voice in his mind again: "She's survived a lot worse than you could ever do to her . . ." The dream-image of Vejiita had been right; Shiatar could take whatever he threw at her, and she'd come out stronger. And suddenly, he knew what he had to do.
Folding his arms, he altered his stance ever-so-slightly, and let his face fall into lines that were half-natural, half-contrived. Subtly, he even shifted his ki, so that it no longer bore quite his own characteristic signature; now it resembled not his own aura, but one closely related . . .
"Well," he said to her. "It seems you've been honest, at least."
Shiatar almost started; she looked up at him. The lingering pain in her eyes almost stopped him, almost made him back down, but his sense of honor would not allow that: he was not Trunks, now, to her. He was Trunks-sensei. And there was power in using pain to teach.
"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."
She stared at him. "W-What?"
Trunks shifted, adopting his most Vejiita-like stance, knowing that the moonlight would highlight his resemblance to his father. "You're free to go. 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."
A visible shudder passed through her frame, and she took a step backwards. Confusion, now, had taken the place of pain in her eyes. For a moment, her mouth worked silently, then she spoke. "I . . . Trunks-sensei . . ."
Trunks turned his back on her. "Just Trunks, now."
She was silent for a moment, her confusion almost palpable. "Trunks . . . I . . . I haven't learned what I need yet . . . I haven't become a Super Saiya-jin . . ."
Trunks snorted. "You won't make it."
"What? I . . . but you said . . ."
He shrugged. "I thought you had potential. But now that you've told me about the things you've been through . . . if you had the strength to become a Super Saiya-jin, you would have done so by now on your own. I didn't realize how weak in spirit you are until just now."
Ah---suddenly he could feel her ki, as the habitual controls she kept on her aura to conceal it slipped. Confusion and anxiety were the dominant emotions he sensed roiling in her. "Weak . . . I'm not . . ."
"Aren't you?" He turned his head so that she could see part of his profile. "You've had plenty of reasons to unleash your anger. But it hasn't happened, has it? Even when you saw your comrades killed before your eyes---you were their leader, weren't you? They trusted you. You had a responsibility to them. If you were going to become a Super Saiya-jin, it would have happened then. But where were you when your warriors were dying? Hiding?" He snorted, and turned completely away again. "You're no warrior. You were right in that, at least. In fact, I'd say you were a coward."
Her ki swirled rapidly around her, and suddenly he sensed the sharp edge of her anger. Good; it was working. He pushed on.
"The one time you did unleash your anger, you couldn't control it. You killed your only friend." As cruelly as he could, he laughed. "Some warrior. Your enemies live on, but you slay innocent bystanders. Not that it matters, really---I know Chichi, and she's one of the most annoying women I've ever met. You probably did your world a favor when you wiped her out."
There---her anger spiked, sending an invisible wave through the atmosphere. The gravel at his feet stirred, responding to that anger. "No," she whispered, behind him.
Trunks shrugged. "So you're right, that you're unteachable. You're good, I'll give you that---but you aren't good enough. You might as well stay here, in this world. You'll never be able to defeat your Vejiita. I'm sure I can convince Kaasan to let you stay. She's got no problem with charity."
A shift of gravel as she took a step toward his back. "I don't need charity." Her voice was vicious. "And I don't need you to beat Vejiita."
Trunks snorted. "So what will you do? Yell at him? Threaten him? You haven't got the power to back your words up."
"I have power."
"Ah, yes." He raised his head. "The mysterious power you manifested to kill Radditz. Power's no good if you can't use it. Only a warrior can use real power."
"I am a warrior!"
"What?" Trunks asked incredulously. "Because you won a tournament? That only made you the best of the weaklings. It really was an honor that your Vejiita gave you, when he made you Radditz's mate. I suspect the only reason that he did it was because the Saiya-jin have always had a shortage of women. You really weren't worthy of bearing a warrior's child---but then, Radditz was of low birth. I suppose you'd do, for him." He turned. Shiatar stood just behind him, half-crouched and her fists clenched; her face was a study in outrage.
"It takes a lot more than being able to fight to be a warrior," he said quietly. "I can't teach that; it has to be there to begin with. That's your problem, Ko Shiatar. It's not there. If it was there, you'd never have allowed them to put that collar on you, the day you won the tournament. You'd never have lost control of your anger and killed innocents. You'd never have stood by and watched while your comrades---your whole people---were slaughtered, and you'd never have lost a challenge so badly. You couldn't even beat Kakaloto, and he wasn't a Super Saiya-jin. So how can I teach you? There's nothing in you for me to work with."
He turned, and began to walk away along the ledge. He counted seconds, silently---
On five, he heard her snarl behind him. "How dare you---" she spat, and he stopped, not turning still. He heard her take another step toward him. "You don't know me. You don't know anything about me, or what I've been through. You . . . you live this soft life, you have food and a home and a mother . . ." she said this last savagely, as if she resented that the most. "No one's ever whipped you, or put chains on you, or stood you in front of a crowd and put a price on you! How dare you judge me! You bleached-out, human-looking son-of-a-monster---"
He turned, swiftly, as if she'd angered him, and was privately pleased to see that her ki had already grown beyond anything he'd ever felt from her. It was visible only in the way the gravel had begun to rise from the ground around her, but he felt the swelling violence in that aura, and almost smiled. "I do dare judge you," he said coldly. "I've defeated my enemies . . . I've harnessed my power. All you've defeated is one defenseless human woman."
She clenched her fists tighter, and he noted that her braid floated, just a bit, out behind her. "I can defeat you, you bastard---"
He laughed. "How? With this power you claim to have? You can't control it! Why should I be afraid of something that frightens even you? You think you can beat me---use this power, then! Go on!"
She tensed visibly, and he sensed, suddenly---a tremendous, surging power, just beneath the surface of her ki. But it was deep within her, much deeper than it needed to be if she was going to use it. Sensing it, he had to conceal his amazement; the power he sensed in her was much greater than anything she'd ever shown before. More than enough power for Super Saiya-jin---and abruptly, he knew what had happened on the night that she'd destroyed Radditz's citadel. He'd sensed this level of power before, in the past, during the battle against Cell . . . when young Son Gohan had finally gotten angry and unleashed the massive power that slept within him. Gohan had gone beyond Super Saiya-jin; he sensed this same level of power in Shiatar now. But Gohan had at least been a Super Saiya-jin when he'd released his power . . . for Shiatar, at the time a teenage girl who hadn't even reached the limit of her abilities as she had now, this kind of power was far more than she could have safely contained. Control of such power would have been difficult for the prepared; she'd been frightened and half-unbalanced, hardly in any condition to harness that power in any useful way. She was lucky, in fact, that she'd survived the power-surge; the Vejiita he'd met in the past had told him once that although there had been no Super Saiya-jin on the Saiyan homeworld for generations, there had occasionally been strange accidents---spontaneous combustions that leveled whole cities and mountains. Vejiita had laughed, and said that the accidents must have been weaklings who'd accidentally tapped more power than their bodies could handle. The Prince had been right, Trunks realized suddenly. Shiatar had probably come dangerously close to destroying herself as well as Radditz's citadel, consuming herself in the blaze of her own energy; no wonder she couldn't recall what had happened. She'd been lucky to remain sane.
Which meant, he realized suddenly, that he'd have to be careful. Shiatar still wasn't ready for the power he sensed in her---enough for her to shift straight beyond Super Saiya-jin, if she wasn't careful. The power had probably grown as she had gotten stronger over the last few years; if she accessed it completely, it could kill her now---and him as well, he realized. It was too much power; it would be years, with her as a Super Saiya-jin, before she would be able to control it. But then, she wouldn't be able to access the power at its fullest level; she'd spent the past few years, since Chichi's death, building her control to incredible levels. At the same time that he'd sensed her power, he'd also felt the psychic equivalent of a brick wall in Shiatar, holding that power back. She was blocked, probably on both a mental and a physical level; her body wouldn't willingly come that close to death again, unless she forced it. And given her tremendous guilt over Chichi's death, he didn't think she'd consciously reach for such power again. And yet . . . His cruel words were chipping away, now, at that wall; he'd have to be careful to only open it, not destroy it. But he couldn't think of a way to enrage her enough to break her control, and yet not drive her over her limit . . .
Shiatar's face worked though a range of emotions, from murderous hatred and then to fear. Trunks smiled at her. "You can feel it, can't you? More power than you can control. If you use it, you may destroy yourself. But without it, you're no match for me." He lowered his head, and voiced a low chuckle. "Stupid. You're no warrior. A weakling, perhaps." He narrowed his eyes, and smiled his worst Vejiita smile. It was time, now, with her poised on the brink of her power, to set the final barbs. "And a whore."
The word hit her like a blow---he could see it strike at the root of all her fears, all her doubts, all her shame. It hurt him, to see how badly he'd hurt her---but it was working. She stepped back, trembling, and he felt her power surge again, her loose hair waving gently in an unseen updraft. She wasn't there yet, but she was very close; another verbal blow, carefully aimed, should do it . . .
She bared her teeth, and he was actually surprised at the feral look it gave her face. Unconsciously, he suspected, she'd levitated perhaps an inch off of the ground. "Whore?" she asked, in a shaking voice. Her aura seethed with a feeling of betrayal; she'd bared her soul to him, and he'd attacked her at the heart of it. Her very ki trembled with emotion---
He almost wasn't ready when her attack came. She sprang at him so quickly that he didn't see her move. But he'd read her move easily; she was too agitated for any effective attack. Calling upon his own power quickly, he lunged to the side, and her fist shot past his ear; her other fist came at his face, and he caught it. She gasped, and he grinned at her.
"Is that the best you can do?" he asked softly. She froze, shaking with suppressed emotion, her fist trembing in his grip. "No wonder you couldn't fight Radditz. Yes, whore. You didn't kill him until the second time he came to you. Where was your great power the first time? But then . . ." He leaned forward, smiling, and put his face right next to hers, close enough that his breath tickled her ear. He spoke in a low, ice-cold whisper. "But then . . . maybe you didn't want to fight him off, that first time. You said you idolized Radditz, and the other elite---maybe your power didn't come because . . . you wanted him. Neh?"
She didn't move, even her ki frozen, only her eyes betraying her emotion. Trunks released her hand, straightened, and turned his back on her again, beginning to walk away slowly. "Go away, little girl," he called to her over his shoulder as he walked. "Leave this fighting business to your betters. Little fish should stay out of big ponds. I'm done with you."
He was tense as he strode away, keeping his sensitivity at its highest level, so that he could catch even the slightest change in her aura. This was the critical moment; he'd never again catch her in such a vulnerable state, never again be able to provoke her this much. And as much as he hated himself for what he'd said, he knew that it had been enough; if her control was going to break, it would have to be now. But she was silent behind him, her ki frozen and still. Utterly silent . . .
For a moment, he thought he heard a sound. A crack and tinkle, like the shattering of an overstressed glass. Startled, he stopped, his eyes widening. And then he felt something like a small supernova swelling behind him---Shiatar growled, the most blood-curdling sound he'd ever heard. Trunks turned, and was torn between smiling in elation and starting in shock; the power within Shiatar had awakened, and all the world would soon know it.
She stood, rising slowly from her huddled posture, fists dripping blood and face contorted in inhuman rage. Her teeth were clenched so hard that he could see the muscles in her jaw, and her whole body was shaking---with fury, this time. All around her body, he could see something like a negative aura, the antithesis of normal ki---this was a ki of pure hatred and rage, swirling outward from her in slow convections, power made visible. The currents of this aura had lifted the gravel into a drifting nimbus around her, contrasting sharply with the non-colors of her power. Behind her, her braid had lifted into view, the cord she'd tied it with snapping suddenly; as he watched, the braid began whipping about, its strands separating as if by the work of swift, invisible hands, and a moment later her hair floated about her, freed in all its ebon glory. And then---
Her eyes fixed on him but seeing something else, she screamed, her back arching, and all the land around them shook with the force of her cry. The cliffs around them shuddered as if in pain, great boulders shivering loose and crashing to the ground; the waterfall's steady stream faltered, the monotonous roar in the distance becoming labored. And Trunks was suddenly hard-pressed to keep his feet, as the ledge that they stood upon shifted abruptly. But he ignored all of this, his eyes focused on the figure before him.
Shiatar screamed again, her body rising a meter off of the ground, her hair standing on end. There was a flash, like the flare of a striking match---
The wave of power that blasted from her destroyed the ledge, and half of the cliff. Trunks leaped into the air to avoid the explosion of stones, swinging about again to try to find Shiatar amid the massive cloud of dust and rubble that rose. He squinted, trying to see through the dust as it slowly began to clear . . . and gasped.
She looked up at him through a shifting, scintillating golden aura, with green eyes turned the color of sapphires, her body lit by the sunlike glow so that the angles and shadows of her face stood out in sharp relief. About her head, her hair stood in shifting locks, solidified by the power that imbued it, a glowing nimbus that went all the way down to her hips. Her jacket was gone, burned away in the explosion of power, but the tank shirt underneath now fit her torso, still loose but not by much. With the jacket gone, he could see the cords of muscle in her arms, sharply defined now in graceful lines as she lifted them, her fists held at waist-level. The chaotic rage that had been on her face had been replaced by an expression of seething-but-contained anger, and as she turned her head to gaze at him, he experienced a shock that shook him to his foundations.
She was, he thought in a daze, the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen.
Ko Shiatar was much, much more powerful than he'd been when he'd first become a Super Saiya-jin; from what he could gather, she'd reached a level of power that was almost equivalent with his own. He stared in awe. That she could manifest such power on this, her first time . . . he hadn't thought it possible. His mentor Gohan had never been this powerful; the glowing being before him was strong enough to take on the Cyborgs alone. And win with little trouble. It had taken him years to get to this level . . .
And he smiled. He'd succeeded. He'd managed to bring her past the barrier she'd erected unconsciously, the barrier that had kept her from reaching her ultimate power, and although she'd shot to a level far greater than he could have imagined, she'd retained enough control to prevent a catastrophe. He'd done it . . . and so had she.
He lowered himself to face her where she floated below, and her eyes tracked him as he came down. "Well done, Ko Shiatar," he told her. "Very well done. You've done it."
Her expression did not change. "What?" she asked, her voice low and wary. "Look at yourself." He lowered his eyes, all pretense of hostility gone. "I'm sorry for everything I said to you. But look at the result."
Slowly her face shifted, drawn brows deepening as comprehension dawned. Her eyes flicked down, and she lifted her arms to look at them, at the changes that her body had undergone, and when she looked up again, the anger had been tempered by confusion.
"You . . ." she began. "You . . . those things you said . . . you didn't mean . . .?"
"No, Shiatar," he replied, smiling. "Never. I'd never have said those things to you if that hadn't been the only way to push you beyond your limits."
She looked at herself again, then at him. And abruptly, her eyes rolled up in their sockets. He gasped as her ki dropped suddenly into nonexistence, the golden aura that blazed about her flickering out of sight and her hair dropping as it returned to its usual dark color. She fell, her body turning limply in the air; Trunks shot forward and caught her just before she would have slammed into the jagged remnants of the cliff below.
Carrying her to a stable shelf, he lifted her in his arms and stared into her face. "Shiatar---?" But she was unconscious, her eyelids dark and bruised in her suddenly pale face. Frightened, he felt for her pulse and her ki and found both, faint but steady, and sighed in relief. She had manifested too much power after all; not enough to do any permanent harm but enough to drain her to unconsciousness. She'd be all right with a few days' rest.
She was surprisingly light in his arms, and he took the opportunity to gaze at her, reaching up to brush stray hair from her face. Whoever her Saiyan and human parents had been, their inheritance had combined in Shiatar to create a fascinating blend of features, strong and angular and yet somehow also soft, graceful; how had he never before noticed how lovely she was? He sighed. Whether he apologized or not, after what he'd said to her tonight it would take a miracle for her to forgive him. It was good, at least, that he didn't have to be her teacher any longer---although he would teach her anything else she wanted to know, she had reached her long-sought goal. So now, perhaps, he could be himself with her, at last . . . but would she ever be able to trust him? As many times as she'd been slapped in the face in her life . . . it would be a long time, he suspected, before she was ready to trust anyone. A very long time.
But as he gathered her limp form to him and took off again toward home, he recalled his father's words, from the dream. Ironically---he'd never have expected to find encouragement from anything Vejiita said---those words gave him hope.
". . . she's a warrior, and she's stronger than you think . . ."
