As they stepped through another bend in the ice, light suddenly appeared, and it was so bright that they had to close their eyes, covering them with their hands. It streamed in through cracks in the snow, slim and flickering, and glittered in the large precious stones that hung along the icy walls of the tunnels. There was a radiance of color, blues in all different tones, with all different depths and beauty. Much like the snow outdoors, the ice seemed to glow from the inside, surging gently in rhythm with the twinkling light from above. When their eyes finally adjusted, Yamucha blinked rapidly, awestruck by the sheer beauty of it. After hours of stumbling around in the pure darkness of the tunnels, this was quite an amazing change. Morning must have come already, and brought this magical, lovely change along with it. He looked over at ChiChi, who was as awed by the beauty as he was, her black eyes wide and filmed over with tears, moved by the sheer splendor before them.

He loved her. But maybe all along, he had known that he couldn’t have her, wasn’t sure that he wanted to, deep in his heart. All he knew was that he wanted her to be happy, really and truly happy, no matter what it took. And with Gokuu, she was happy; Gokuu was what she needed, what made her complete. And even though she was the very thing that would complete him, they would never be pieced together. Perhaps he was never meant to be pieced together, but destined to always be alone, without a partner. And then again, perhaps he was only meant to wait, wait until he finally did have a chance with her, in another life, in another time. As he stared at her pretty face, enraptured with the scenery of the tunnel, he suddenly realized just what he had been feeling all along, and it hit him with a strong amount of hope and happiness. What he felt for ChiChi, this burning need and sadness, wasn’t the end of his life. It was only the beginning. There were other worlds out there, other times, other moments and other futures. And maybe in one of them, somewhere, somehow, he would be complete with her. Life didn’t end with death; death is only the beginning of a new journey, with new futures and outlooks. And whatever his life ahead of him had in store, he was prepared. He was prepared to fall in love again, ready for it to be right this time, for there to be nothing holding him back. He had finally realized that in this place, in this time, there was no place for him and her. And all it had taken was a simple “I can’t” from ChiChi --- he just hadn’t recognized it then. It was a simple sign that she wasn’t the right one for him now, not there, not then. But there was always hope for more, for other times.

He smiled at her, and slowly felt the closure, knowing that no matter how hard he tried now, he would never be what she wanted. She had belonged to Gokuu the whole time, he was just to blind too notice it. He took her hand suddenly, needing to tell her how he felt, and how thankful he was, but another feeling suddenly struck his heart, this time a very, very unpleasant one: danger.

Fear suddenly seared through his entire body, ripping up muscle like fire, tearing and snapping at his heart. He froze, listening intently, his body rigid and entirely still. Beads of sweat rolled down the side of his temple slowly, freezing to ice halfway down, and he turned his head to the direction that they just come from, staring hard into the darkness behind them. All the hope and happiness he felt melted down and fell into his stomach, hot, slick, and churning with fear too thick for him to breathe. He was suddenly very aware of the fact that only one of them was going to make it out of this tunnel alive, and it wasn’t going to be him.

“Yamucha, what’s wrong?” ChiChi asked in a whisper, and she held onto his hand tightly, fear in her eyes. He could feel her heart beating fast through the palm of her hand, light and fluttery. Her stared down at her, tears suddenly appearing in his eyes, knowing somehow that he would never see her face again. All the times that he had longed to see her, and all the times that he had wanted to touch her hands just as he was now, and it all came to down to this one moment in time. She looked so young and beautiful then, so vibrant and full of life. She had love, a family, a future that was brighter than anything he could have possibly dreamed. And though he knew that she didn’t love him, he still loved her, more than life itself. And he would rather die a thousand times over than ever let her feel any kind of pain.

“Run and hide.” He choked through tears, and her eyes grew puzzled, looking back and forth between him and the tunnel behind them, searching the darkness. He released her hands, and they fell to her sides as if in slow motion, and he backed away from her, towards the darkness. “Quick. Now.”

She shook her head, and tears started to glitter in her beautiful eyes. “Nani? But I---”

He longed to tell her that he loved her one last time, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he would be able to hear that she felt the same way before he died. But all he could do was stare at her, his face blank, and tell her to run again, as fast as she could, and to hide her ki. She turned slowly, her eyes still on him all the way, and everything around him came to a rushing stop as she stared, tears running down her cheeks. Then she bent her head down, and faced away from him, and though he wanted it more than anything, she never looked back, her dark hair flying behind her as she disappeared down the tunnel, running lightly and gently along the ice. He waited there for what seemed like hours, staring after her with his heart pounding, fighting off the sudden impulse to chase after her. But in the end, he stood his ground, his feet firm on the solid ice beneath him, his hands tight at his side.

There was a flicker of light behind him, then a figure stepped from the darkness and into the brilliant beauty of the tunnel. It was obvious to him that she hadn’t expected to see him there, for she tilted her head slightly as she saw him, her short, dark hair falling to one side and covering up one glaring eye. The girl was small and compact, not exactly beautiful, but not ugly either, with kind of a sharp beauty that stung him straight in the side. She brushed her hair back, letting it fall firmly back into place, and smirked at him, her eyes narrowing into tiny slits, her tail curling loosely around her small waist.

“Well, hello my Earthling friend.” She said, and the edge in her voice let him know that the statement was most likely bitter sarcasm. “What might you be doing down here all by yourself?”

He stared back at her, determined not to show any emotion whatsoever. “Why the hell do you care?”

“It’s just interesting.” She explained, moving towards him with her small, pale hand gesturing towards the walls of the tunnel. “The Earthlings tend to move in groups, but I find you here alone, unaccompanied and unarmed. It makes me wonder what you are doing here, in the middle of the this icy world, when all of your little friends are somewhere else.”

“Maybe I like to be alone.” He said, and he glared at her, crossing his arms tightly on his chest as she circled him like a wild animal, occasionally looking up at him with dark, hungry eyes.

She paused for a moment and looked around the area suspiciously. “And maybe you’re hiding something from me. I felt the Earth woman here. I know I did.”

“Maybe you should get your scouter checked. There is no Earth woman here, just me. And maybe you should get the hell out of here before I show you the kind of damage that an Earthling could do to a weak Saiya-jin.”

The Saiya-jin girl laughed, an awful grating sound that made Yamucha’s ears ring. “Weak!” She laughed. “That’s amazing, my dear human. You think that I, strongest of the Saiya-jin race is weak? My people are and always have been, ten times the strength of you. I’ve killed more soldiers and more enemies in one month than you probably have in your entire, pathetic little life. I have more experience, more talent, and more strength than you could possibly imagine.”

He lifted an eyebrow, his arms still crossed tightly, his heart pounding like a hammer in his chest. “Oh, I’m shaking with fear.”

“Stupid Earthling. You should be shaking with fear.” She threatened, and moved to show the sword at her side. He noted with calm eyes that there was already blood on the cool metal, frozen there by the freezing winds and snow. She moved it into her hands, and held the handle with confidence and determination.

Yamucha bent down into fighting position, and suddenly he wasn’t afraid. This had been a long time coming, and somehow, though the moment wasn’t anything like he pictured it, he was familiar with it. He had seen this girl before, perhaps in another life, and before she even showed him the sword, he had felt it’s hard metal shoved deep into his back, piercing straight through his heart. There was no pain with death, once you left this world you would no longer feel the sting of pain or the fear that comes along with it. And though he did not know where he would end up when he died, or how things would end up, he was no longer afraid, and he was ready. It wasn’t about him anymore, it was about the others, making sure that they lived on, especially ChiChi. He had been placed in their lives for a certain reason, and this was it, right here. “You can go ahead and kill me, you Saiya-jin bitch, but I’m not going down without a fight.”

He wasn’t prepared for the way that she lunged at him, with one hand outstretched like a claw in front of her, the other gripping the sword tightly. He managed to step aside and disappear just quick enough to only feel the sting of the blade lightly along his shoulder. Looking down as he flew, sliding over the ice, he saw a stream of his blood, skimming along through the cold air, and he placed a hand over his shoulder, blocking out the flow. They paused for a moment, and smirked at him, as if she knew how much she had just shocked him. He straightened up and drove straight at her, fearlessly, drawing back his arm for a hard punch to the jaw. She whipped back, leading with her right side, and flipped backwards, sliding along the ice with hands and feet until she gathered herself into a strange, spider-like position near the wall, crouched down and glaring.

“My Earthling friend, you might be more of a threat than I thought.”

“Most of us are.” He said, and drove straight at her again, this time with a new determination.

He approached her quickly, and she before he reached her, she sprang up, pushing off the wall with her feet and shooting straight into his stomach with outstretched fists. The pain hit him hard, and his eyes bulged, feeling as though her fists had gone all the way through, not being able to catch his breath. They paused for a moment, and she waited for him to catch his breath, wanting a worthy opponent, her eyes watchful and full of something that he could only recognize as excitement. When he felt air rush into his lungs, hot and burning, she disappeared from his sight, moving faster than a heartbeat. With quick and agile hands, she flicked the sword back and lashed out again, this time aiming straight for Yamucha’s exposed neck.

He saw it coming, and managed to duck just in time to have to tip top of his hair scissored off, tiny pieces of black falling to the ice on the ground, mixing with blood and sweat. Dropping to the ground, he balanced on his hands and swung his legs out to kick her off her feet, his hands stinging at the touch of cold. She easily jumped up over him, lightly hovering up into the air before coming down with her hands clasped and elbows bent, nailing Yamucha square on the top of his head, nearly cracking bone. Searing pain shot through his head and down into his shoulders, and he wavered for a moment, his head bobbing as a blinding dizziness set in. The Saiya-jin girl’s movements were slower now, and her motions streaked across his vision and a blur of black and pale flesh as she pounded him with a flurry of hits. However small her tiny fists were, they were doing a world of damage, and as an experienced fighter, she knew exactly where to plant them. Through his slow daze, he finally managed to gain a bit of direction back, and lifted up his arms to block, seeing her fist flying straight at his jaw.

She hit his arm hard, and instead of releasing and pulling back for another punch, she wrapped small, strong fingers around his arm and ripped back with all of her strength. Yamucha cried out as his arm pulled out, dislocating his shoulder with a sickening pop, and he was flung to the young girl’s side like a limp rag doll. Still holding onto his arm, she whipped him around with amazing strength, and laid the arm out over her bent knee, snapping it in half as if it were a mere twig. Yamucha howled. His arm was bent in entirely the wrong direction, and the pain was shooting up all over his body, spreading like a disease through this bloodstream. The girl paused for a moment, releasing him, and stepped back to admire her handiwork, watching Yamucha crawl along the ground, holding his arm in pain. Then with a painfully slow and careful movement, she aimed and kicked his straight in the stomach, sending him sailing up into the sky, slamming into the ceiling of the tunnel, sending spiderweb cracks in all directions. Chunks and shards of ice and snow rained down as he fell, but the girl paid no attention, swatting away the jagged rocks as if they were flies. Yamucha however, in his very pained, very dazed state, knew that she had just made a very big mistake. The ceiling of the tunnel was weak, already under the pressure of years and years of heavy snow. A single crack could mean a very big cave in and a very big mistake.

On the ground, choking on his own blood and ducking from the falling debris, he called out to her. “Looks like neither one of us is going anywhere!” His voice was distorted by the rumble of shaking ice as the tunnel began to cave in, snow falling in like waves upon them.

Calmly, she stared down at him, her eyes narrowed, sword in hand. “That’s where you’re wrong, you human piece of trash. In case you hadn’t already noticed, I am invincible.”

She hopped to the side as a huge boulder of ice slammed into the ground, and swung the sword back and forth as she made her way to his side, murder in her sharp, evil eyes. Her hands were shaking, knuckles white as she stood over him, a small girl that seemed to tower over the full-grown man, with more pride and strength than he ever dreamed of having. More began to fall from the ceiling, like sand slipping quickly to the bottom of an hourglass, and she raised her sword high above her head, her eyes on his the entire time. Yamucha kept his eyes on hers, but in his mind he saw nothing but flashes of his life, quick pictures of every single happy moment that he ever experienced. He remembered the beauty of Earth, and the way that sun seemed to sink into the ocean at sunset, large and orange. He remembered the breezes on Kame Island, and the way that rain felt when it touched his skin, warm and comforting. There were flashes of the young, carefree Bulma, and the small, amazing little warrior that had become his close friend. There were catches of laughter and snapshots of picnics and barbecues and parties. And there was ChiChi. He saw her in a new light, as he had never seen her before, beautiful and loving, the one thing that he had always wanted but couldn’t possibly have.

Then Pi plunged her sword into his back, and he felt the cool metal slide through his body, tearing up his insides and mixing steel with blood. His eyes slid shut slowly, and though it was it was the Saiya-jin girl’s face that he saw last, it was not the face that he carried with him in memory. He felt his blood run cold, as if the freezing temperature of the planet had finally eaten away at him, and then all he felt was a light floating feeling, as though he were no longer part of his body. From somewhere high above, he saw everything: the tunnel caving in, the girl ripping the sword out of his body and blasting off into the air, blood still trailing from her sword. He saw ChiChi running as fast as she could, being chased by the wave of ice behind her as the tunnel caved in, and then he saw himself, lifeless and cold, buried under mounds of snow and ice. Then everything faded slowly, melting into warm, soft colors, then darkness, and he never saw anything again.

Chapter 67
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