A prisoner inside of her own mind, Juuhachi-gou suddenly began to feel very frightened. Yes, the scene earlier between Tayhei and her brother had been nerve-wracking, but hearing Mirai Bulma discuss the dangers of surgery brought her to entirely new levels of terror. She knew that it was a little weak and pathetic of her to think in this manner, but the idea of surgery --- any kind of surgery really frightened her. Especially when she realized that she was going to have to see it all through this evil being’s eyes. She wouldn’t feel the pain; wouldn’t be able to fear taste the bitter pain medication going down her throat, wouldn’t be able to feeling the searing prick of a needle in her arm. But the fear….She had no choice but to feel the fear. And the terror of going into surgery was much worse than any kind of physical pain. It was a raw, aching kind of fear that brought her back to those vague memories of Dr. Gero’s lab. She didn’t remember much of it vividly, not the pain or even the emptiness that she must have felt. But she remembered the fear. Even in dreams it seemed to leap up out of her chest and burn across her body like fire.

And now she was going to be forced to go through it all again.

Once more she was going to be strapped down to an examining table and taken apart. This time, it wasn’t going to be a madman that held the scalpel, but that didn’t make it anymore appealing. In fact, it made it even worse. However insane Dr. Gero might have been, he was very competent scientist. Mirai Bulma, although she was probably brilliant when it came to matters of machinery --- wasn’t exactly an expert on surgery. She had heard them talking about bringing in a specialist to complete the actual operation, and that made her feel slightly better.

Underneath all of the fear though, lay a brilliantly vivid layer of hope. However scared she might be to go through this operation and to have her body opened up again, she would gladly do it if it meant a chance to be normal. If it meant that she would be able to cry and laugh and love like every other human being, then she would go through a surgery every day for the rest of her life. She had never ached for anything more than she ached for the chance to be normal. Sometimes, the need for it all but consumed her, and she found it hard to function. Perhaps this entire thing had happened for a reason --- perhaps this evil had come out in her in one last desperate attempt, because it knew that she would eventually kill it. She had been so determined to live her life as a normal human. So determined in fact, that she had driven out the evil and made it scared of her. She was slowly becoming whole again, slowly placing the shards of her life back in order.

And that scared the hell out of whatever Dr. Gero had placed inside of her.

Kuririn sat in the small side sitting room in the Son House, his back pressed up against the hard wood chair that had been placed next to the window. The chair was dreadfully uncomfortable, but he barely noticed it at all. Gokuu and Goten were just outside the window sparring, but he paid no attention to them either. The entire center of his universe, it seemed, was the phone and the conversation that he was having with the woman from the future. His hands tightened on the receiver, his knuckles nearly turning white with the strain as he listened to her explain what had happened earlier that morning in the Capsule Corporation laboratory.

When Mirai Bulma’s familiar voice had first come over the line, Kuririn had felt his heart thud painfully in his chest. Calls of that sort never turned out to be a good thing, and he could tell just by her tone that something serious had happened. He had taken the phone into the other room, away from the Son family and Marron to have a little bit of privacy. He would eventually have to tell them about the phone call later, but he didn’t want to cry in front of them. And when he heard that distressed tone in the woman’s voice, he was certain that something had happened to Juuhachi-gou. Much to his relief, no one had been seriously injured, but the fact that there was an incident at all made him feel queasy. He had thought that it was all over with, but it looked as though the whole mess was still raging on. The news that Juunana-gou had tried to kill Bulma’s young lab assistant was disturbing to say the least.

He listened quietly to Mirai Bulma as she explained the fact that she wasn’t entirely sure about the surgery, but felt that they needed to act right away. According to the future woman, this kind of thing would simply keep happening again and again until the jinzouningen were permanently fixed. There was no use in trying to temporarily restrain them. Their bodies and minds were just simply too strong and too developed for that. Also, the evil that had clouded over their hearts seemed to bee much more calculating and determined than they had all originally thought. He knew that going into surgery before Mirai Bulma was prepared would be dangerous, but he also knew that it was probably even more dangerous to have Juuhachi-gou and Juunana-gou kept out in the open, unrestrained and full of Dr. Gero’s evil.

“He really attacked Tayhei?” He asked again, still unable to move past the fact. He wished that it could be simpler than this; he wished that things had just gone according to plan. He had been preparing himself for a later surgery date, telling himself that he had time to get used to the idea of his wife going through such a dangerous operation. But now that everything had been forcefully shoved up and moved along, he felt as though he had been swept away by it all. His head was beginning to hurt again; it was something that had been happening regularly since Juuhachi-gou had left him and flown into the night air.

“Yes, unfortunately he did.” Mirai Bulma’s voice replied sadly. He noted that there was a tinge of guilt mixed in there, and he knew that she must feel responsible for what happened to the girl. After all, she was the one that he restrained the jinzouningen; she was the one that had said they were safe and couldn’t harm anyone. Her voice paused for a moment, then continued on, sounding a bit more professional. “I know that it’s hard to believe, but he actually freed himself from the electrical restraints that I placed in him and ambushed her in the storage room. He caused a lot of damage to her, as well. Certainly beat her up quite a bit. Like I said; she’s okay, but it’s important for you to remember that she could have been killed.”

He thought about the situation, propping the phone up between his shoulder and his ear so that he could use both of his hands to rub his temples. The headache seemed to be increasing with every single word that she spoke. He really didn’t know what to think anymore. These past few days had just been much too hard on his heart and his mind. He wasn’t used to having to think this hard and be this stressed. On one hand, he had his wife’s life, and other hand, he had the lives of everyone else on the Earth. It seemed as though the two of them weren’t going to be able to coexist in harmony. Something had to be done, and quickly. He knew that if Juuhachi-gou could speak to him, she would tell him to move the surgery up and get it over with. She wouldn’t want anyone else to be hurt.

Kuririn waited a long moment before speaking. “That’s horrible that he attacked Tayhei, but I don’t know how I feel about rushing into the surgery before you’re even prepared for it, though. Give me your honest opinion: do you really think that you can do that without killing them?”

“I’ll do my best.”

He shook his head, even though he knew that she wouldn’t be able to see it. “I need a yes or no, Bulma.”

There was a long hesitation, then: “Yes.”

“Then call your surgeon and go ahead with the operation.” Kuririn told her, taking in a sharp breath as his headache seemed to suddenly lash out with an even greater strength. He drew his brows together in pain and pressed his hands hard over his temples as if he were trying to smother the pain. He struggled to keep his voice normal. “If you don’t mind though, I’d like to come over and talk to Juuhachi-gou before she goes in. And I’d like to stay as close as possible while she is in there. I know it seems silly, but I think it will really help her if I’m there; somehow, she just might recognize the fact that I’m with her.”

Mirai Bulma agreed, and he hung up the phone, letting it fall from his hands and clatter to the small table beside him. He sat on that uncomfortable chair for a long while, trying to will away the aching pressure in his temples. He knew that he had done the right thing, but he was still sick with fear that something was going to happen to Juuhachi-gou. He had always been keenly aware of the fact that he loved his wife too much. His love for her had always bordered on worshipful, and she was the center of everything in his life, the one steady, unchanging part of him. And now he understood the danger of loving someone that much: the fear of losing them was immense. It was much more than he could handle, and he wasn’t even sure of what he would do if she didn’t make it out of the surgery alive.

After a long while, he finally exited the small sitting room and headed into the kitchen to find his daughter. He would have to tell her what happened eventually, and he might as well get it over with right away. She was in the kitchen with ChiChi, idling chatting as they packed a large lunch basket together --- obviously food for the dragonball hunt. Kuririn almost smiled. The lunch basket was the size of a small Capsule Car, but he had no doubts that Goten alone could probably eat the entire contents of that basket and still be hungry. They were going to starve out there.

“Marron,” He asked her from the doorway. “Are you going to Capsule Corporation to get the dragon radar this morning?”

She turned to him with a bright smile, and her childish pigtails bounced up and down lightly as she nodded. “Hai.”

“I need to come with you. There’s been a bit of an emergency.”

Koronu heard the story about Tayhei and Juunana-gou through amused ears, picturing that vicious girl fighting back in every way possible. The only thing that she could think about the whole situation was that the male jinzouningen was certainly brave. Not even she would want to attack Tayhei. Not because she was afraid of her of course --- she could probably kill the girl with a mere flick of her finger. But Tayhei was like this tiny, ferocious little animal; it seemed like she would just jump all over an opponent, scratching and biting as hard as she could. Those high heels alone could cause some extensive damage. It would be a messy fight; there was no doubt about that. Juunana-gou most likely won the tussle, but she was certain that he didn’t survive it without a few telltale scars.

She leaned back in the car seat and stretched her arms up over her head, smirking at Kuririn. “So someone finally put that brat in her place, eh?”

Kuririn paused and looked back at her in the review mirror curiously --- as if he couldn’t imagine what she possibly found funny about the situation. To her, it looked as though his thick mop of dark hair had gone gray within a matter of days. This entire ordeal had made him practically ancient, and she felt sorry for the little man. Humans weren’t known to be a particularly strong breed, and Kuririn was too kind and gentle to suffer the way that he was suffering now. “Well, I don’t know if I would explain it that way. But yes, Juunana-gou attacked Tayhei.”

Koronu smiled again, this time directing her remark towards Marron, who was sitting in the seat next to her. “I imagine she’s going to be in a lovely mood when you ask her for the dragon radar.”

The girl all but whimpered and slid down lower in her seat, sinking into the folds of her oversized sweatshirt like a turtle sinks into its shell. She propped her chin up on one of her hands and stared out the window in avid concentration, trying to avoid the subject of Tayhei. Koronu should have known that the two girls wouldn’t get along well. Tayhei was far too harsh and calculating to be able to appreciate Marron’s sweet demeanor. And Marron was too young and naïve to realize that all of Tayhei’s sharp remarks were nothing but a defense mechanism. It was never anything personal with Tayhei --- just a way of asserting power of people that were weaker than her. Koronu did that often herself, so she knew that it was virtually harmless. So far, Marron had seemed to warm up to her much quicker though. Most likely because she was an older figure, and Goten’s grandmother instead of a young, beautiful girl with a sharp tongue and a vicious nature.

The car pulled to a stop light and it was so quiet that the only sound was the gentle clicking of the turn signal on the dashboard. Koronu looked about the car and tried to think of something witty to say, because the silence was nearly killing her. Also, the normally quiet clicking of the turn signal suddenly seemed much louder than necessary, and definitely much more annoying. To break the uncomfortable tension of the moment, Kuririn cleared his throat and directed another question at them. “Are you going to ask Piccolo to help you look for the dragonballs?”

“Otousan went to see him earlier this morning, and he said he would help. As soon as we get the dragon radar, we need to head over to Kami’s palace.” Goten informed him in a cheerful tone, his grin growing larger and larger with every word. He spun around to face them in the backseat, and he propped his elbow up on the top of Kuririn’s headrest. Next to the small man in the driver’s seat, Goten looked like a giant. He was a young, growing boy who was already almost as big as his father and would indefinitely surpass him someday. “This is kind of exciting, isn’t it? It’s been a long time since we went on an adventure.”

“Goten, your last adventure was just a few months ago.” Koronu pointed out.

“That wasn’t an adventure. That was a mission. There is no danger involved in finding the dragonballs --- it’s just pure excitement and fun. Going to Sukuashi wasn’t fun. I didn’t even know if we were going to make it out alive or not.” He stopped for a moment and his cheerful grin fell a bit; the light in his eyes dissipated slowly. “And rather obviously, some of us didn’t make it out alive. Those kinds of things aren’t fun….They aren’t adventures. They’re just missions, plain and simple. Finding the dragonballs is not a mission.”

Marron’s eyes peeked up over the edge of her sweatshirt, and her voice came out muffled and sad. “Hopefully.”

Goten tilted his head to the side quizzically. “What do you mean?”