The snow fell softly, snowflakes swimming through the air lazily, chasing after one another in slow, romantic dance. The air was dark and cold, yet in the dusting of snow and the creamy black of the sky, it all of the sudden seemed very magical and lovely. They walked side by side in the snow together, their arms brushing as they walked, plodding slowly through the thick whiteness. Every now and then, Bulma would stumble in the height of the snow, and automatically, Vejiita would reach out an arm to steady her, still facing straight ahead. It was a long walk back to the ship, and terribly unsafe to be flying at this point in time. He didn’t want anyone or anything picking up his ki, which would be impossible if he started flying. The minimal amount of energy that he produced was enough to be picked up on any scouter, anywhere. If he were alone, he would have flown as fast as he could, ripping up the snow behind him as he went, but he wasn’t alone. Bulma was with him, and as her mate, it was his duty to keep her safe from harm. He might be capable of defending himself and killing another lifeform, but Bulma was not.

Carefully, his eyes trailed over to her face, and found her deep in thought, confusion in her ocean blue eyes. He looked away for a moment, his pride battling against his heart, then looked back, halting in the snow at her side. “What is it, woman?”

The question might have sounded harsh, but Bulma took it as it was intended to be: a simple, caring ‘what’s wrong?’. She ran a hand through her turquoise strands and stared back at him, her mouth drawn into a small frown. To him, she looked very small then, very pale and sick. “I don’t know.” She said. “I’m getting that strange feeling again, like I’m lost.”

He shrugged. “The ship is directly ahead of us. Just a few miles away.”

Frustrated, she shook her head. “No….I didn’t mean that literally. I just don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I feel like I’m just out there, with no direction and no future. No future at all, just like there is this big, white gap where the rest of my life is supposed to pick up and start. It hasn’t always been that way. I used to be able to see my future, bright and sparkling, always just a day away. But ever since we left Earth, it just hasn’t been the same. I feel….lost.”

She thought for a minute, looking down and reaching for his hand. He let her hold it, knowing that there was no one around for miles, knowing that even if there were, it wouldn’t matter right at this moment. She gently held onto him, then looked up at him with tear-filled eyes. “Do you love me?”

Vejiita froze. “Nani?!”

“Do you?”

“I….I…..” Vejiita stuttered, thinking that no battle or situation had ever been more difficult than this one, simple question. How the hell was he supposed to know what love was, know how to recognize it in his heart? It seemed like all these humans ever talked about was love and feelings and emotions, but he had never really known what to make of them. Love, the short little word for a tremendous amount of feelings and passion and loyalty, had always seemed vague and stupid to him. No one word could ever describe what ‘it’ was, or compare to how ‘it’ made him want to do things that he had never done before, hand the world over to her with a flick of his wrist. Saying ‘I love you’ was nothing more than speaking three words and making the other person try to find meaning in them.

As if she sensed his confusion, she grabbed his other hand, and searched into his eyes. “Think of it this way: if I died, right now, and you were never able to see me again, what would you do? How would that make you feel?”

He would die. He knew he would. He would curl up inside and die, never wanting to have anything to do with life, or the pain that it had given him. He would be angry, more angry than he had ever been in his life, a fury that could rip the universe apart and shatter the stars. He would go through hell just to bring her back, wait for her for an eternity, just to be able to see her face at least one more time. But these were not things that he could bring himself to say. Not that he didn’t want to, his heart was aching for him to tell her these things, to let her be comforted. But his pride was strong, the strongest thing in his world, and he would not allow himself to say it. So he merely took his hands away from her and cupped her chin lightly, nose to nose, gazing deeply into her eyes. A part of him hoped against hope that she would be able to read it there in his dark depths, and know what he was inside, without ever saying a word. He held her there like that for minutes, and the two of them shared each other’s soul, breathing each other’s existence in like cool, crisp air. Time seemed to pass very slowly, as he stood there looking into her pained blue eyes, feeling every part of her there with him, beating slowly in time with his heartbeat.

Then he pulled away slightly, and spoke in a rough, deep voice. “There is no need to ask questions that you already know the answer to.”

She smiled through tears, somehow knowing exactly what he meant, and feeling it in her heart.

Pi stood at the entrance to the tunnel, her small hands on her hips, peering into the darkness there. Night was quick on this planet, and it had already begun to fade away, light breaking in pink tinges on the edges of the horizon. She felt that too much time had passed, that the coming of day meant that her chance had been passed over, disappearing into the darkness of the night. She had never been to the tunnels before, had never flown this far out into the snow, not knowing what to expect. She hadn’t expected to find Potuto here, running scared at the entrance, preparing to hide in the tunnel’s quiet protection. It had been more of a shock for her to find him than for him to turn and discover her there. And as she looked back at his body lying in the snow near the entrance, she smirked. It was also a shock to discover how easy it was for her to kill a member of her own family and not feel an inch of regret, or a shred of sadness. To her, it was as if he had never existed at all. He was just the annoying medical attendant in the infirmary, the sad little whelp that followed Koronu around with his tail tucked between his legs. She was related to him about as much as she was to the Earthlings.

Killing him hadn’t brought her the excitement that she was craving. It had been too easy to shove the sword into his chest, her eyes locked on his, twisting the handle, feeling the warmth and rush of blood. There was simply no challenge in it, no reason for it. For all the enjoyment she got out of the kill, she might as well have just left him alive, cowering at the entrance to the tunnels. She needed to feel the excitement, to feel the satisfaction. After all, isn’t that what the great Saiya-jin race started out as? They were killers, all of them. It was buried deep in all of their souls, the others just hadn’t let it be awakened as she had. She was young, very young, but at an early age, she had felt the urge to kill running through her blood. She was truly something special, something one of a kind. Greater than any and all Saiya-jins.

She peered into the darkness again, deeper this time. In her mind, in her soul, she could feel slow echoes, signaling the life of another person, beating away in the shadowed tunnel. The Earthlings moved without scouters or power-seeking devices. She knew they were not stupid, and that finding a power level was necessary, so she assumed that they had developed some way to find the energy on their own. She had given it a shot, closed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could to find the largest abundance of power, and had ended up here, at the entrance to this tunnel. She knew that it hadn’t been Potuto that led her here, her brother was far too weak and stupid to hold that kind of power. It had to be the Earthlings, and they had to be inside. She wasn’t familiar with this whole ‘feeling power’ thing, but she knew that she familiar with the Earth woman, with ChiChi. And vaguely, from somewhere deep inside of her, she could sense ChiChi’s ki.

Pi made a decision fast, and stepped through the opening and into the black tunnel. Wherever ChiChi was, that was where the other Earthlings had to be, and it would be easier to kill all of them in one big group than to try and pick them off one by one. As she stepped into the tunnel, she blinked, surprised at the thick darkness of it. It was almost a suffocating black, and it surrounded her whole, wrapping around her like blankets. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness for a moment, and very vaguely, she could make out the area. Immediately in front of her was a crossing, with two directions, right or left. She studied them for a moment, then careless selected one, imagining that all of the tunnels met up in the end anyway. Hovering above the ground for a second, she tried to feel the ki once again, then shot off in flight, turning off the path to the right.

Minutes after Pi had disappeared from the sight of the first crossing, the entire group from Earth returned to that exact spot, slowly and cautiously, appearing from the left side like white ghosts out of the darkness. It was deep, deep black in the tunnel, so dark that the darkness seemed to move, shifting and twirling before their eyes in lengthy ribbons. With wide eyes that could see very well in the darkness, Piccolo led their way, strong green legs walking along the icy ground with steady assurance. He cruised through the tunnels with ease, and the others followed him blindly, feeling along the icy walls to get a feel of their direction. For the short time that they had already been in the tunnel, he had gained a very apparent sense of direction and calm. Not only could he see the path ahead of him, but he could hear and feel everything that was going on in the tunnel as well. It was him that initially felt the disturbance of ki, that felt Potuto’s death white hot in his soul. It was a quick decision that he made, and rash, but he was concerned about the safety of those that were with him. If something or someone was following them through the tunnels, there was too much danger involved, especially since they weren’t familiar with the layout of the maze of ice. Besides, for the kind Saiya-jin who had rescued them and helped them into safety, it was only fair to try and do what they could to thwart off whatever enemy had killed him.

“It was Pi, wasn’t it?” Gohan whispered behind him, and Piccolo nodded, although he knew Gohan probably couldn’t see his head anyway. They were standing at the very first crossing, and light shone in dimly from the entrance to the tunnel. Piccolo could see that morning was brightening the area outside, and pale violet light was beginning to show at the edges of the horizon, mixing with the twilight.

“Stay here, all of you.” He commanded suddenly. The others gathered together in a tight circle and began whispering, talking quietly amongst themselves about things that Piccolo didn’t care to hear. For the most part, all of their issues had been resolved, and there appeared to be no more signs of drama among the group. Whatever petty differences they had at first had obviously been quelled by imprisonment and the sting of cold.

Though his order had been meant for Gohan as well, he followed Piccolo courageously outside, ignoring his request. Strangely, it comforted him to have Gohan there beside him, strong and intelligent. His respect for Gohan had grown during this mission, as he saw Gohan becoming the adult. Had always been very adult, even as a young child, very quiet and gentle, but now he was truly mature. There was a strong sense of leadership about him, and morally he was very sound and very sure. He was seeing a side of Gohan that he had never seen before, one that made him extremely proud, though he would never say so.

The two of them bent through the ceiling of icicles and stepped out into the light, shivering at the sudden burst of snow and cold air. The sunrise was even more amazing outside of the tunnel, snowflakes changing color with the differences in the background of sky. They blinked at the sudden brightness, their eyes adjusting slowly as they stepped through the thick snow. Piccolo shaded his eyes, and gazed around the snow at the entrance, trying to find Potuto and dreading to see Pi lurking about in the whiteness. It was the trail of blood that led him there, following the light pink sprinkle in the snow until he found Potuto’s body, buried in a mound of snow.

They didn’t touch his body, wishing to let him rest in peace, but they did take a guess at how it was done. Quickly, they knew; they had barely even felt Pi’s ki before Potuto was dead. From the way that the snow looked around them, it seemed as though she might have thrown him into the drift, but they couldn’t tell if it had been before or after she killed him. Eventually, they grew tired of guessing and stood next to one another in the snow, searching the sky.

“I can’t see anything.” Gohan said, and he squinted hard at the area around him. “Maybe she flew off after she killed him.”

Piccolo’s mind searched. “Iie. I think she in the tunnel.”

Gohan whirled around to stare at the entrance, a frightened look on his face. “Masaka! But everyone is in there….Even Okaasan is in there somewhere with Yamucha. Maybe we should walk above the tunnels, out in the fields. I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt in there. After all, it’s so dark that I can’t even see my own hand inches in front of my face.”

“Hai, and what makes it even more interesting is how she found us. Something tells me that she no longer has a need for that scouter toy that they all have mounted on their ugly heads.”

Gohan nodded in understanding. “The same thing happened with Vejiita in the very beginning. He couldn’t understand how we could survive without scouters, not being able to feel power. And once we were on Namek and he didn’t have use of his anymore, he learned to search for ki on his own. Maybe Pi has done the same?”

Piccolo wasn’t sure about any of that, but he did know one thing: he wanted to get off of this planet as quickly as possible. There couldn’t be many Saiya-jins left after the explosion of the tower, but what little Saiya-jins were still out there, would be coming after them at any moment. And if they had all learned how to feel ki, then they might be in trouble, especially if they were packing those damn paralyzing guns. As far as he was concerned, these Saiya-jins were nothing but dirty, cowardly cheaters. “Go get the others. Get them out of the tunnel as quickly as possible and we’ll head for the ship on foot through the snow instead.”

“Hai.” Gohan answered, and started off, but turned back slowly. “Piccolo-san, what about my mother and Yamucha? We don’t know where in the tunnel they are.”

He shrugged. “They are just going to have to fend for themselves. There is really nothing that we can do. Hopefully, they are near the end of the tunnel and will be able to escape any danger.”

“What if they aren’t, though?”

Piccolo stared at him for a long while, then looked up at the horizon, which was beginning to settle into its usual blank, colorless scape. A steady uneasiness was growing in his heart, eating away at him rapidly. And just because Piccolo is Piccolo, he suddenly became aware of the fact that not everything was going to go off as planned, and there was going to be a great sadness ahead of them. “Either way, it’s going to be a long road home. Let’s just hope that we all make it back in one piece.”

Chapter 66
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