Yamucha stared after the strange Saiya-jin woman, holding the pills in his hand with a puzzled expression. She had seemed very hostile towards him, and he couldn’t figure out why. From the moment ChiChi had brought him over to her, from the moment that they were introduced, Koronu had stared at him with burning eyes and locked her mouth into an unpleasant scowl. He really didn’t care for people like that, people that judged other on a first meeting and assumed that they were a certain way. It reminded him of Vejiita. He scrunched up his face in distaste, and cast the pills to the snowy ground, deciding that he didn’t need her help anyway.

“I don’t see why we should trust her, anyway.” Yamucha said to ChiChi. “She is one of them, after all.”

ChiChi simply bent down to the ground and began picking up the handful of pills, shaking the snow off of them. One by one, she placed them in the pocket of her cloak, her eyes on the sky where a very faint figure could be seen flying through the snow. “No she isn’t. She’s not anything like them. Her and Potuto have both been very good to me since I first arrived here, and I have no reason to not trust her.”

Her eyes met Yamucha’s again, and he felt his breath catch in his throat. She looked at him carefully, as if she were trying to find out where all of the anger was coming from. She looked so much more beautiful since the last time he had seen her. Her skin was tighter and smoother, her eyes were brighter and more full of spirit than he had ever seen. She looked at though she had been given new life, new strength. He didn’t know all that had happened to her, but he knew it must have been something very amazing to make her look so self-assured and beautiful. She was wearing strange clothes, similar to the clothes that Koronu had been wearing, right down to the black cloak that hung around her shoulders. Unlike Koronu, the hood around was down and around her long neck, her head exposed to the elements. There were soft black boots on her feet and thin gloves on her hand, and her entire body from neck down was incased in a very, very tight black stretch suit, something that looked frighteningly Vejiita-ish. He couldn’t but notice how it complemented her, or how long and beautiful her hair looked when it was loose and shimmering down behind her, like a waterfall of black silk. Despite her lack of clothing, and the hideous chill in the air, she looked completely at ease, as if she were at the Kame House, basking in the sun, warm and peaceful. Koronu had explained the Nairb, and how it made you warm in this freezing climate, but Yamucha wasn’t sure he wanted to use it.

There was a long silence, as if her thoughts were somewhere else, then she eventually shook her head, her hair glistened as she looked up at the sky again, shading her eyes from the snow. “Koronu is Gokuu’s mother.”

“Nani?!” He screeched, his thoughts slamming to an abrupt halt.

“She is his mother….” She explained. “We found out earlier. She hasn’t seen him since he was just a tiny baby. Isn’t that strange? I thought about what it would feel like to send Gohan or Goten off to some foreign planet right after they were born, and it nearly killed me.” She trailed off, still lost in thought. Her eyes took on a sad look, and she clasped her hands in front of her chest, a familiar gesture to Yamucha. “How are they doing? Gohan and Goten? I’ve missed them lately.”

His face softened, and he smiled encouragingly at her. “They’re fine, ChiChi. Obviously upset that they mother was suddenly missing, but they’re okay. I was worried about Goten for awhile, but I think he’s going to be okay now.”

She looked back at him, and her face was full of sympathy, something that he always felt he needed, but never really wanted to see. Especially not on her face, which was normally so beautiful and so accepting. “And you, Yamucha? How are you doing? It’s been awhile since we really talked.”

He thought for a moment, the edges of his vision suddenly darkening into gray. All this time he had wanted to see her so badly, wanted to just feel her there beside him and hear her laugh, but looking at her now, he wasn’t so sure. He was there with her, yes, but it felt as if she were still a galaxy away from him, as if they were separated by a thick sheet of glass. Her mind and her heart were a million miles away from him, and although he wished that it didn’t have to be that way, he somehow knew that it always would. She was the most perfect thing in his life, the most perfect thing for him, and he couldn’t even touch her, couldn’t even reach her. It was his own fault for not realizing it sooner, for not realizing it before everything else had come tumbling down. All this time, he thought that life was nothing without her, but he was beginning to think that life wasn’t judged by the people that you were with or the love that you felt. It was about knowing yourself and trusting yourself, and feeling a certain sense of peace inside of your heart, the kind of peace that couldn’t be interrupted by the end of a relationship or the death of another. It was just you, your heart, and your soul. All this time he had thought that ChiChi was the problem, and the cause of his unrelenting depression, but that wasn’t true at all. It had been him, all along.

He looked into her eyes, large and beautiful, fringed with dark lashes. She had never been his to lose in the first place, and he needed to stop blaming her and to stop blaming Gokuu for the pain that he felt inside. It was up to him to change this, to make a difference in the way that he felt. And he knew for sure that he couldn’t live like this any longer. It was time to take control of his life and change things. He took a deep breath, still staring into her dark eyes. “Hai, ChiChi. I think I’m going to be okay.”

The two of them climbed onto his snowbike in silence, their thoughts elsewhere, deep and dark. She wrapped hesitant arms around his waist, and held on tight as he started up the engine, speeding them away to safety. And as they rode through the empty city streets towards the ice tunnels, he wondered how he could have ever fallen into such a deep dark hole, and how he could ever dig himself out of it.

Potuto descended on the airship cautiously, not knowing what to expect. Koronu had warned him before that the Earthlings would first view him as an enemy, but he knew that circumstances had changed quite considerably. If he could hold them off long enough to explain, perhaps the Earthlings would not harm him, and he would be able to carry though with what he had been sent for. As he came closer to the airship, he was surprised to find a very tall, very green man standing near one of the ship’s legs, leaning against the cool metal with his long arms crossed. One long, thick fingernail tapped on the green arm, and he looked up at Potuto with no expression at all. There was no shock in seeing a strange invader, no fear at seeing a Saiya-jin soldier….just nothing. As if the tall green Earthling had been expecting him all along. He felt no threat coming from this stranger, and no need to defend himself, so he merely dropped to the ground before him and held his head high.

“Don’t be alarmed, I am a friend.” He said, holding up his hands as if to prove that he was unarmed, just in case there was any question of his trustworthiness. “Kakarroto and Koronu sent me here to help. My name is Potuto.”

There was still no reaction from the stranger, whom Potuto was beginning to think might possibly be of the Namek species, though he had never seen a warrior type before. He briefly wondered if he had maybe located the wrong airship. The Namek blinked once and looked almost bored, still leaning heavily against the leg of the ship. “What is it?”

Potuto raised his eyebrows. “Yo….Your friends have been taken. Sukuashi ordered that there would be no death, but they are still prisoners yet, and there are no guarantees.” He explained, then looked at the Namek to see if there was any sort of reaction yet. He found the green face before him still expressionless and bored. He wondered if Nameks ever showed any kind of reaction. There wasn’t much he knew about them, only what he had read in manuals and scientific or medical journals.

He shook his head, then continued. “Koronu is suspicious of why Sukuashi would take them all prisoner, but she thinks that he is after Kakarroto himself….some sort of a personal grudge against the family line. She has Kakarroto under her wing at the moment, keeping him safe from captivity, but I believe the two of them are going to take on Sukuashi by themselves.” He took a deep breath. “I know the planet better than almost anyone else, and I am familiar with everything in the city, but I don’t have the strength to be able to fight off the guards and release all of the Earthlings. Since Kakarroto and Koronu are otherwise occupied, they suggested that I ask for your help.”

“Everyone has been captured?” The Namek asked.

“Hai. Including Saiya-jin no Ouji, Vejiita.” He answered. “And although Kakarroto is the one that Sukuashi is really after, I fear for his safety as well. Whatever we do, we had better hurry.”

They located the cave fairly quickly, a small black hole in the middle of the snow field, recognizable by the circle of blue ice that surrounded it, white icicles as thick as three inches covering up half of it. The ice glowed softly and steadily as if diamonds were held up the center of it, glinting in the light of the snow, rainbowing out into the air. It was silent and still, the wind was strong but quiet in their ears, and all seemed to move in a slow, dreamlike fashion before them. It was still light, but ChiChi could see the brightness fading into black as she slipped off the back of the snowbike and fell gently into the snow beside it. A gust of wind swirled the cloak around her, and she rose her hands to help Yamucha off as well, still uncertain at his touch. Both of them were oddly graceful, moving in slow, controlled motions as they pushed the snowbike over to the entrance of the cave together; the snow gave way as if it were merely cotton, and they pushed it easily to the side of the cave, to the thick blue ice that surrounded it.

It was strange to be around him now that the tension was gone. She could sense something very sad, yet at peace in Yamucha’s heart, and though she longed to say something, longed to ask him, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She had never known what to stay to Yamucha, had never known what to feel. How could she look at him, into his soulful black eyes and crush him? What more could she possibly say to let him know that she loved Gokuu with every part her, and always would?

As night began to fall further, the unknown source of light fading from view, the planet took on an entirely different look. The complete and utter white, vast unbreakable, was softened into subdued colors; there were touches of the palest lavender in the distance, mixing with a deeper blue at the horizon, melding into a pale pink along the hill lines. The snowfall itself seemed to take on a new life, and each snowflake seemed to take on a different, shimmering hue, the color never certain. The snow feel against the deep black of the high sky, and though light still existed all around them, there was no moon, and no stars to light the world tonight. The light itself seemed to come from the snow, which exuded a glow from its very center, shifting and moving in the shadows of the wind. The glowing was rhythmic, and it joined the symphony of the air and the snow, creating music heard in hearts, not ears. Brushes of air swept past, sparkling with snow and ice as it moved, dancing through the heavy air like tiny fairies bound for the horizon.

It was as if she had stumbled through the breach of heaven and into some magical, breathtaking world. Never had she imagined such beauty in a place of such pain, hidden on the outskirts of a land eternally cold and ever uninviting.

“Beautiful.” She breathed softly, and Yamucha stirred at the sound of her voice. He craned his neck back to look at her, and she noticed that his eyebrows and eyelashes were dusted with ice, his cheeks bright red and burning from the sting of snow.

He gave her a very small nod, almost as if he were distracted, and leaned the snowbike to rest near the entrance of the cave. Next to him, ChiChi stood knee deep in the snow, with her eyes were wide, admiring the landscape before them. She held her hand up to shade her eyes from the snow, watching the dance of wind and storm before her, and the painting of colors and beauty in the distance. There were clouds rolling in over the mounds of snow in the far west, dark shades of purple lightening into a pale, almost translucent pink on its edges. The clouds were laced with dustings of ice and snowflakes, crisscrossing through the cracks like shimmering ribbons, moving and twisting with the wind.

As her gaze traveled to Yamucha, she found his eyes watering, tears running down his cheeks, freezing still in the middle, his jaw set firmly. She tilted her head slightly, comfortingly, and though he did not look at her, she knew that he felt her staring. “Yamucha, what’s wrong?”

There was a pause, and he bit his lip, as if trying to hold in the rush of emotions that were running through his mind and his heart. She had known Yamucha for many, many years, in all that time, she had always known that there was something deeper in his heart, something more than any of the people that they surrounded themselves with. Beneath Yamucha’s confident, cocky exterior was something very special, layered beneath a lifetime of hurt and anger. There were very few times when he let that part of himself show, but it was always bubbling beneath the surface, caught on the edges of sentences, clinging to the ends of his expressions.

“I don’t know.” He choked. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It was like I had nothing good anymore, like every bit of happiness had been squeezed out of me and I was left dry and empty. I’m so empty that it’s crushing me, and eating me alive. I’m ashamed to admit this, and I don’t even know how or why it happened, but I just gave up on life.” His eyes looked up towards the horizon once more, his chin quivering. “I didn’t want to live anymore, and that fact that I had to keep on living made me so angry, so furious with myself for not being strong enough to end it all. I was so sick of the world, of how ugly it was and how people treated each other --- treated me.”

He paused, and smiled slowly through his tears. “And then I see something like this, such a dazzling display of the forces of nature, of the beauty that the universe has to offer, and it’s like Life is talking to me in this soft, barely there voice. It’s saying that even in a place like this, in a time like this --- there is still a bit of good. And now I feel happy, happy to no end that I am still here, that I was able to see this, to see you. Even if it doesn’t last, even if all the beauty out there fades away, and you fade out of my life again too….I think that now I might be able to be free again. I don’t know what happened, but somewhere between 4:08 and the moment I first saw your face here, I suddenly found myself again.”

Looking into his eyes, which were so happy, so pure and childlike, ChiChi suddenly felt a rush of love for her friend. She leaned in with a softness and a gentleness that rivaled the shimmering beauty of the snow, she pressed her lips to his cheek in a kiss.

“Welcome back, Yamucha.” She whispered, and taking his hand, she ducked and led him into the darkness of the icy tunnel, her heart aching at the richness of his self-discovery and happiness. Much like herself, he had seemed to find the good in opposition, the light side of what had originally seemed so dark and bleak. As her eyes adjusted to the new darkness before her, tears gathered slowly, and her chin trembled, wondering if she would ever be able to be the innocent young girl that she used to be. Was there a way to maintain purity, or the lightheartedness of a child? She had lost so, so much when Gokuu left, not just him, but herself as well. Now she had a chance to gain it all back, to wrap it up in her arms, in her heart forever, and no matter what the consequences, no matter what the risk, she was going to see him again.

Chapter 60
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