From a distance, all one could make out was three tiny points in the sky, barely visible beneath the heavy curtain of snow, flying so fast they appeared to be moving almost in slow motion. All around them the storm was picking up steadily, wrapping around them like a freezing cold blanket, the snow beginning to whip around them in whirls now, bits of lightly colored wind twirling through it like ribbons. They took turns attacking, each covering for the other as Sukuashi attacked, never giving the Saiya-jin a moment to rest as they continuously threw punches and kicks at him, aiming for the most deadly of spots. Without warning or sound, all three of them dropped to the ground and began the fight again, steady on the snowy ground, moving mounds of snow up in waves as they sped along.

It was a rush, and a thrill, Gokuu thought, to be fighting next to his own mother, someone that he had never even thought existed. Everyone had a mother, he knew, but he would have never guessed that his own would be so strong, and so spirited, that she would have fought so hard for her own freedom against such a terrible, terrible force. It was almost enough to bring tears to his eyes, to want to fight by her side and defend her forever, protect her like he protected his ChiChi.

“Give it up!” Sukuashi called as he dodged a sharp kick from Gokuu to the head. He spun around and kicked out straight to hit Koronu in the side, but she blocked it easily with her right arm. He smirked, flying high into the air to get away from them for a moment. “You can’t possibly win against me! What makes you even think that you have a chance?!"

Gokuu paused for a moment, gathering all of his energy into his heart. It boiled there with an intensity that he had felt only a handful of times before, ready to burst at any moment. He held it there for half a second, savoring the feel of the pure, un-adultured power that was alive in his soul. He thought of his mother, of what she must have gone through to get this far, the pain that she must have endured. He pictured ChiChi’s face, streaked with tears and hurt, sadness running deep in her beautiful black eyes. He was fighting for her, for everything that they had shared once before and everything that he wanted back. He thought of her for a long moment, imagining that she was standing right next to him, encouraging him on. Then he snapped into Super Saiya-jin a burst of golden light surrounding him instantly as his eyes turned jade and his hair stood on end. Waves of gold swept across the snowy fields, and in the air, Sukuashi froze, his eyes wide with fear and astonishment. Perched on his ear, his scouter broke into a million pieces scattering into the air like snowflakes.

“That.” Gokuu said, then smirked at the frightened Saiya-jin, letting the power roll off of him and seep into Sukuashi’s mind. “There is no way you can win against a Super Saiya-jin, and you know it.”

His stunned expression fell away, and though Gokuu could feel his uneasiness, he didn’t show it. He dropped to the ground with a smirking expression, his arms crossed tightly across his armored chest. “Maybe not, but I’ve had my fun. I’ve managed to make both of your lives miserable. Koronu, did you know that Bardoku tried to find you? Did you know that he deliberated disobeyed King Vejiita’s orders while on missions to come and find you? He searched for you every free moment that he had, and never thought to look here on this planet because it was unsuitable for living! I chose it for that very reason, you see. I knew that as long as I kept you locked away here, there would never be any chance of you ever being happy again. You didn’t give me what I wanted, so I simply took it, and it was better than if I had had it all along. Even if I can’t win this battle, the damage has still been done. The Earth woman is probably dead in prison by now, and Koronu, my dear mate, you will never get back Bardoku, or be able to return to your precious planet Vejiita. It’s over, whether the two of you care to admit it or not. Killing me will do you no good.”

“It will give me justice.” Koronu snapped. “It will give justice to my memory of him. You couldn’t ever take that away from me. You took away everything else, every part of my life, but you could never, ever take away what I had already shared with him. That will always live on. And now I am here to get my revenge and get back a part of what was taken away from me, even if it’s a small part.”

“Then do it!” Sukuashi taunted. “Call off your Super Saiya-jin bodyguard and fight me like the warrior that you are. That is, if you still have it in you.”

Gokuu looked at Koronu quickly, but she refused to take her eyes off of Sukuashi. In a strange, tense voice, she spoke to him, and he could feel her confidence soaring high through the snowy sky. “Stand back, Kakarroto. Like I said before, this is my fight, and I want to end this by myself.”

He didn’t want to abandon her, didn’t want to make her have to fight Sukuashi alone, but he was struck by a sudden sense of assurance. She was his mother, strong and true, and he knew that whatever happened in this fight, she would come out victorious. Like himself, she had something to fight for, and he knew that she would give it everything she had. Instantly, the golden glow subsided, and he dropped back to his normal form. He took a step back and nodded at Koronu, knowing, feeling, that something amazing was about to happen.

Sukuashi nailed her in the stomach, a hit that had her doubling over for breath, clutching at her middle as she backed away from him, spinning high in the air. Sukuashi paused, holding himself upright in the sky, his eyes cruel and unrelenting, moving to face wherever Koronu went.

“Bardoku was always weak, any Saiya-jin weaker than his own female mate should be ashamed of himself. I did him a favor by taking you away. He didn’t have to live with the shame anymore, knowing that his mate was actually the weaker in the relationship.” Sukuashi taunted, circling her with a cruel smirk on his face. Anger swept through her at the statement, and she looked up at him with burning eyes, her hands clenched tight against her sides.

“Shut up.”

“You were pathetic!” He yelled, ignoring her, and circled her, his hands held in front of him like claws. “The two of you acted as though no one else existed, each of you in your own special, flowery little world. Pathetic, pathetic, almost human, you were! With all of your emotions and happiness and comfort. I was right to take you away, to show you what real life was like.”

“Shut up!” Koronu snapped, turning her head away.

“And now you’re even more pathetic! Ten times the loser you used to be. All those years under my command and you still couldn’t do anything about it, you weak pathetic female! All you could do was whine to the Council, and all they did was give me a little slap on the wrist! I’m untouchable! There is no way that you could defeat me. You don’t have it in your soul, you’re not vicious enough, you’re not strong enough!”

“Shut up, kisama!!” She screamed, and fury rushed to her head, ringing there in a high pitched frequency, sending pulses of pain down her spine. “I don’t want to hear it! Shut up!”

She threw her hands tight over her ears and bent her head down, trying to rid herself of his cruel voice, trying to block out the anger and the guilt that was building up in her chest. She faltered in the air, wavering as she ducked another kick from him, nearly falling out of the sky. Here she was, faced with her greatest challenge, and she couldn’t even get her balance. She didn’t know when or how she felt it, but suddenly there was a silent moment of perfect calm in her heart. Everything went in slow motion, from Sukuashi’s flurry of punches that she dodged with a detached ease, to the snowfall that seemed to freeze all around her, flakes stunned to stillness, tiny glowing white orbs against an ocean of gray sky. Behind her, Gokuu spoke quietly and gently, a soothing, soundless voice that she heard in her heart, not in her ears. “Let the anger fill you up, then take hold of it, mold it, use it!”

Her breath stilled, listening to Sukuashi go on and on, screaming vicious insults at her, demeaning Bardoku, her family, her sons. She blocked his attacks first with her eyes open and watching, then closed her eyes, and automatically defended herself, with only her instinct and her intuition to go off on. Her mind was a million miles away, in a place that was warm and familiar, in a room that was dirty, but comfortable, with a bed that was as soft as a bundle of feathers. He was there, her mate, sleeping soundly beside her, with his tail curled around her leg. This is where she should have been, where she rightfully should have stayed, warm and content there with Bardoku for the rest of her life. Even if she died when Vejiita exploded, she would die happy, in his arms, in their bed. Rightfully she should have been there for the rest of her life, for the rest of their life. But Sukuashi had taken that away from them, tore them apart as if their bond meant nothing, when Koronu knew that it meant everything. He had taken her away and had no regrets, no sympathy, no apologies at all. He had taken her away, on purpose, just because he could.

She heard Gokuu’s voice again: “Let the anger fill you up! Use it!”

Koronu closed her eyes, blocked out everything, cleared her mind of all things except for Bardoku’s face, and Gokuu’s voice, urging her on with instructions. She understood then, understood what it meant to be that powerful, to reach heights that she had only dreamed to reach before. It wasn’t something that you could read in a book, wasn’t something that could be taught or learned. It was about what was inside your heart, and what you were fighting for, the love and life of another, for freedom and justice. It was about the spirit that lived in your soul, and whether or not you had the kind of strength inside that would let you accomplish anything you desired. And as soon as she understood this, as soon as she realized it, she also realized that it was possible for her. It had been there all along, that amazing, sleeping power. She had just never felt it, because it was buried under so much anger and hostility.

Her heart beat wildly in her chest, and she felt the power tingling in from her fingertips, trailing through her blood seemingly slowly, though it took only seconds. Her eyes cast over in red, shading the entire world in a haze of red, thick and hot. She closed them, and felt the adrenaline, the power, surge through her like wildfire, eating up everything inside and turning into pure energy at her disposal. There was one strong wave of power, then another, and another, until she had gathered it all up into her heart, ready and waiting. Her heart beat even faster now, and she had forgotten how to breathe, her breath caught in her throat, choking her. The ground began to move, huge shards of ice crashing up through the surface of the snow, which flew wildly up around her, spinning into a tunnel. Waves of snow were pushed back from her, until she was standing at the center of a crater, with ice shards twenty feet high and eight feet wide one either side of her. Icicles flew up out of the ground and through the air like deadly daggers, melting into water as soon as they neared the burning energy before them. Inside, it felt as though she were dying, the power was so strong and so raw that it was killing her.

When it was too much for her to take, the power burst out of her in a sheen of golden flames, and her voice came out in a vicious yell, echoing through the snowy fields. It ripped out of her, tearing at all of her muscles and shaking her bones violently, before settling into a perfect, easy peace, her heart now calm and beating steadily in her chest.

When she opened her eyes again, the entire world was much sharper, and everything seemed brighter, as if the gold light that was being cast off of her body was lighting the entire area. Sounds were more clear, vivid and loud in her sensitive ears, and though she knew she shouldn’t be feeling the cold, she did. It stung her hard and quickly, and she blinked, startled by the intensity of it. When she looked down to stare at her hands, they were burning gold, and though she couldn’t see herself in a mirror, she knew what she had become. She felt it running clear through her soul, lighting every part of her that had been filled with darkness.

With new, sparkling jade eyes, she turned to meet Sukuashi’s stunned gaze. The first female Super Saiya-jin of all time stood before him, glowing in a radiant gold that stung the eyes of onlookers and filled their hearts with warmth. She stood proud and tall, the power circulating through her, her muscles and senses all aligned into a perfect, strengthening fortress. Her outline, the line of her, was perfect and beautiful, muscles standing out, highly defined by the flaxen shadows, and her eyes were burning jade, and seemed to pierce right into the soul, tearing it down and breaking it apart. She stood there for a moment, looking calmly into his shocked and frightened gaze. There were no need for words now, no need to explain things or to tell him how she felt. She knew it, and he knew it, it was written there in her bright eyes, defined in the way that her mouth was set firmly, her jaw locked and tight.

For the first time in his life as he stared at her, Sukuashi wondered if maybe he had made a mistake. Maybe somewhere between rebelling against the monarchy and stealing ChiChi away from Earth, he had made some fatal error, and fate had handed him this terrible, ironic torture. To be beat by Koronu was bad enough, but this….To see his mate, the idiotic female that he had hated so much, had thought so weak and mindless, achieve the highest power level possible, was the most awful thing that he could imagine. It was worse than death, seeing her standing tall and proud before him, ablaze with a holy golden light and a power that seemed to rattle him to the bone. Whether or not anyone cared, he suddenly felt sorry then, and very, very weak. He was standing before a goddess, awaiting nothing but to be killed, ready for nothing but the sting of pain. And in his mind, he still could not believe it, was still numb from the shock and aching with the questions that were burning his throat.

She moved towards him slowly, as if she were floating through the snow, a beautiful golden angel with murder in her eyes. He knew what was going to happen now, he didn’t need her to tell him, didn’t need to hear the threats, didn’t need to hear himself beg for mercy. He was weak, but he was still proud, and that pride would die with him, regardless of what Koronu wanted. She moved again, and the golden light around her seemed to grow, expanding into a blinding brightness that shook the earth around them and made the sky shake and crack.

And in the instant before his death, all Sukuashi saw see was a flash of gold and a rain of snow, mixing with the dark red of his own blood.

Chapter 63
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