I was monstrous in my form, two golden eyes baring back at me like flames, the fires of hell roasting around my pupils. My eyelids were stained red, blood vessels having exploded around my lashes from the pressure the transformation had demanded from me. I was in horror and love at the same time, seeing the pinkish, burgundy fur over my arms and stomach, soft to the touch and strangely tantalizing to me. The strangest sensation overwhelmed me, my brows furrowing when something wrapped around my wrist.
I had spouted a tail.
I stared at it, feeling as though it were foreign to me yet recalling how to function with it, how to balance and move it properly. I was almost afraid of it, hypnotized by its odd, spontaneous actions yet unable to touch it in my hesitation. This was definitely about to get interesting.
“You,” He was breathing, staring at me with the same intrigue that I was. “Only you Kakarot. It has to be you. The only being in the universe beautiful enough to be by my side, to stand next to me. How could I be so in love with a piece of flesh unless it belonged to you? You are mine now more than ever.”
“No,” I breathed with a sadistic smile, watching my gorgeous, dark lips move to form the words, entranced by how plump and full they seemed to be now. “You could never own me. And you know it.”
I turned to him, the smile still planted on my handsome mouth.
“You know it and it makes you crazy.” I grinned. “That’s why you want me. Because I’ll never be yours, will I?”
He looked hardly fazed by the harsh words, cocking his head to the side and simply observing the transformation for a moment.
“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to fuck something this bad in my life.” He laughed, making me almost instantly hard when he let his eyes glaze over every portion of me. “I swear, any minute now, I’ll be humping your leg like a poodle Kakarot.”
“That’s about all the attention you’d get from me,” I lied, crossing my arms, enthralled with this new sense of empowerment over him. Good God. No wonder he enjoyed the control over me. It was intoxicating.
“And I love it,” He laughed, throwing his head back. “I don’t know whether I want to hit you or kiss you. I think I’d settle for either one deeming that I got to touch you.”
I crouched down into fighting stance, drunk on this power that seemed endless, anxious to see what this incredible body could accomplish. The sense of strength was to the point of uncontrollable, the need to destroy and hurt suddenly engulfing my mind and paralyzing previous thought. I was reverting to animal instincts, pulsating with the need to fuck or pulverize, either one an inviting invitation in this moment.
“What are you doing?” He rolled his eyes.
“I’m about to clean this floor with your face,” I grinned, having always wanted to say something along those lines.
“Ah, so you still think you’re going to beat me.” He said coldly, staring me in the eyes. “You’re still on that trip. But tell me one thing handsome,” He looked at his fingernails. “Say by some twisted fuck up of fate that you did destroy me. What then? What would you do?”
I stood there feeling stupid, not really knowing what the answer to that was or even what he was specifically asking.
“What will you do to fix all of this? You can’t change things back to normal.”
“Of course I can,” I smirked. “I’ll merely summon the dragon balls, wish everyone back.”
“Oh is that what you’re going to do?” he said seriously. “And they call me heartless.”
“What are you implying,” I asked, straightening up for a second.
“You’re really going to summon the dragon balls. You’re really going to wish everyone back from the dead.” He wasn’t asking so much as stating. “You’re telling me straight out that you’re going to bring back people who roasted their family members alive, cannibalized their own children, torched bibles in bonfires and murdered themselves at random. How could you be so cold after claiming to be a hero?”
I thought about it for a moment, horrified that what he said was absolutely true. These people had gone out spilling blood, tearing flesh and committing mass homicide. Could I bring them back without those memories? Could I bring back husbands who had murdered their wives and expect a lasting marriage to still be possible? Could I make formerly tortured children into trusting, compassionate innocents again?
No.
“Have you ever even considered the consequences of using the dragon balls?” He was asking me. “Have you ever given it a second’s thought? People die. They go to heaven. They see others there that have been lost along the way. They fall in love again with deceased spouses lost through the years. They find their parents again, their children who had been car crash victims. They live in a world of promise for the first time. They see the possibility of a life with no goodbyes. And you…..” he glared at me. “You tear them out of there, snatching them from heaven like a fucking monster, ripping off their wings and tossing them back into this harsh reality. This cruel world which had let them go and you’ve once again ensnared them to. Like free animals being caged again. Could you really do that?”
I just stood there in horror at what he said.
“Answer me hero,” He demanded, stepping forward. “Could you do that one more time? Cheat death, make them endure it twice? You think a child who had been murdered by their mother could ever hold her again? You think families who had been burned in their sleep could ever dream of flameless fantasies? No. You would only succeed in baring a breed of psychopaths, mentally unstable monsters horrified to the point of ludicy by whatever weapon had been used to kill them once. Who would be the bigger devil when the world is crawling with numerous mental patients? Would it not be Sin all over again? Even without my help, it’d be pure chaos and you know it.”
I felt a wave of nausea sink into my belly, the feeling of sour bile piling into my throat. My blood felt cold to me, the pigment draining from my face and leaving me pale before his eyes. Eyes that had just torn away all of the blind fantasies I'd always believed about myself. That I was the hero everyone claimed I was. That I was in some ways, a pure and kind spirit with only good intentions. For the millionth time, I was stripped away and shown to be what I suddenly felt like. A fraud.
"Isn't that just beautiful," he purred. "To see it for the cruelty that it is. Isn't it just poetic precious? Even in our purest deeds we are worse then devils. You will have only made them victims to me a second time. Don't you get it? I AM death!"
His face distorted into an inhuman mask of savagery, the beautiful, fine lines twisted and morphed into something so wicked it could hardly be perceived as human or anything of the like.
"I am that fear in the darkness," he seethed, walking closer to me. "I am the final kiss, the finality that they all fight with every breath they take in life. You've surrendered them to the end not once, but twice and wore the mask of a hero while you did it. Tell me.... what does it feel like to have angel wings torn off with your very own fucking hands?"
I wanted to vomit. I wanted to vomit inside my own mouth to distract my mind from the pile of shit I suddenly felt like. For all of my physical beauty, for all of my arrogance and prideful conceit, I was nothing more in my own mind than a reeking pile of dung, warmed by hot rays of the sun. I'd never wanted to melt so much in my entire life.
"I'll go with you freely." I whispered, shocked to have even heard it myself. His look of disbelief was only a sad satisfaction. "I realize now..." I trailed off.
I looked down, trying to etch the cracks of the floor into my mind; trying to permanently ingrain every detail into my memory. Is this what men did when they were about to die? Absolve everything as though it'd make a difference? Did they regret, as I suddenly did, that they hadn't spent so many more moments appreciating even the most trivial things?
"Yes," I nodded with a smile. "I do realize it now."
And I looked up, meeting his eyes as though it were the first time I was seeing them.
"I belong with you." I breathed, laughing at the very thought that I'd beaten away since he'd first insisted upon it. "I'm a fucking monster."
I turned away, shaking my head at this predicament. For how many years had I worn the mask of a hero, hiding my true nature behind it, only for this moment to realize that I hadn't been hiding anything. The true nature of the bastard I was had risen to the forefront and seeped through the tiny lines of my most precious mask. Through my so-called acts of courage I had enacted atrocities that would have befit him. While he wore his cruelty like a medal, I committed monstrosities he would have gladly called his own, the only difference being that I had acted them out behind a good name.
Truly, I belonged in hell. I belonged in festering darkness, overwhelmed by the horrors created by the human mind. He promised me paradise yet I longed for dank pits of despair and the harsh reality of a faithless existence.
"I'll go with you," I promised him, moving closer towards what I had once appalled, only now accepting that we were one in the same.
"You are the monster." I whispered. "And I am the mask you wore."
He nodded, slowly lifting his arms to me. I wanted to cradle inside them, to be enveloped in his darkness, in his hatred and detachment from all that I had once loved. I wanted to watch them burn, to see the decay that was once my existence to be wiped from the ground. Oh yes, I wanted to watch this planet burn away to cinders; I wanted the ashes of my former lies to blow away in his breath that was the wind.
I closed my eyes, burying my face in his throat as he held me.
"Spare them," I whispered. "Give me one wish and I'm yours forever. Give them what they truly deserve; to rot and fester and die of their own incompetence. A quick end would only be a merciful kindness. Let them destroy themselves."
He didn't speak a word, gazing out at the world, at the crowds that kneeled in obeisance to him. He gazed across the Godless existence that had become my once-loved world, pitying it not as I had, but choosing whether or not to grant me my one request.
"Let them continue their worthless existence," he sighed finally. "My work will be done one way or another regardless of the time span. In evolutionary terms, they've already expired. It's only a matter of time before the slate is wiped clean and started again."
I sighed in relief, thankful that though my supposed "heroic" acts in the past were now proved to be less than nothing, at least in one form, I would be going out a hero, sacrificing myself and my long expired innocence. What was there to live for now anyways? A deceased wife? A horrific son that I could hardly even claim as my own now?
"What about Bulma?" I asked suddenly, raising my head. I felt his arms fall away from me, his expression hardened once more by indifference.
"That little end of the deal will go as planned," He said coldly, despite my recent compliance. "I gave my word she would be delivered and so it shall be. Fuck your world and fuck yourself. Bulma is coming with me to hell and that will NOT be tampered with."
"And for what?!" I screamed, startling us both. "because you made a deal with Vegeta? You're the devil for God's sake! Break it!"
His smile made me freeze my little tantrum, making my cheeks burn in embarrassment from my outburst.
"You think I give two shits about Vegeta?" He laughed. "you think that's why I'm so concerned with bringing her with me? THINK!"
I swallowed hard, trying to decipher the meaning behind this new riddle.
"Some pathetic little Saiyan warrior making a deal with me and you really would assume I'd go out of my way for it?" He chuckled coldly. "You think they would have labeled me "the great liar" because I was so fond of making unbreakable pacts with mortals? Fucking pathetic."
There was a coldness that had gradually been building within me, my arms raised with goose-bumps at this puzzle that I almost feared to connect.
"Did I not tell you before, Goku?" He purred. "Hell rots when it comes to you. It's a bore, a nuisance. What point would there be in bringing you with me if all of my time was spent ruining other people's lives as opposed to living my own? So I needed an heir, a person to take over, as it would be put."
"And you are giving Vegeta Bulma as a queen," I spat, shaking my head in disgust. "you'll let him rule over hell and provide him the wife he always wanted as a gift."
"Bah," he scoffed, gesturing his hand and quite literally dragging Bulma out of hiding, both to my shock and horror. "That would be too predictable."
Bulma screamed and fought uselessly against him, sputtering out apologies and "sorries" for not have taken my instructions to run as far away as she could. My spirits seemed to sink with every tear that fell from her eyes, my faith that we would get through this like a weak candle amongst the raging winds of a hurricane. The devil held her against his chest, facing her towards me as she struggled and screamed in an attempt to free her arms.
"I don't give a shit about Vegeta," He laughed. "But you need to ask yourself a question, Goku. Would YOU let her live? Would you let her continue on this earth, even if I would allow it?"
Opening my mouth with a sure answer, I was cut off by his laughter.
"Could you let her live Kakarot," He spat against her cheek. "when the heir I so desire grows in her belly as we speak?"
