After his younger counterpart had left, Mirai Trunks looked down at the sword in his hands and frowned. His own sword was well worn and old, though it’s battle scars spoke more of bravery and strength than age. This sword was ancient as well, but sad. The blood that it had shed had never been for a righteous cause. It was a Saiya-jin sword, a Saiya-jin sword that had only been used to cause destruction and steal away the lives of innocent people. He understood what Trunks was trying to tell him about the sword needing to redeem itself and become pure again --- to be used for its original purpose instead of the evil that its wielder committed with it. He felt honored that the younger Trunks viewed him as the man that could change the course of this weapon’s life. He obviously trusted him and respected him a great deal to be able to hand over this sword, which obviously caused a great amount of fear and sadness in his heart. While waiting silently in his closet, this sword had only consumed the young boy and made it impossible for him to move on.

Moving on was important. It was necessary. A person could not simply stand in the same place for the rest of their life and watch as everyone else past them by. No matter what happened, no matter what tragedies had struck, it was vital to move forward in life. Holding onto things like swords and lost loves so tightly only made it more difficult to live and breathe. Making the choice to stay in the past only limited the possibilities for life and love in the future. In order to be whole --- in order to truly live, the past absolutely had to be let go. That was what he truly believed in his heart, and what he struggled with every day. Because he couldn’t let go. He didn’t want to let go. Although his mind was intelligent enough to realize that it was over and there was no looking back, his heart refused to let go of Tayhei. The Tayhei that he had known and loved was so vivid and real when he closed his eyes that he couldn’t begin to force himself to forget.

His mother had told him long ago that it would go away. She had told him that he eventually wouldn’t be able to picture Tayhei in his mind anymore, and that the memory of her would slip away. But it had been years already. Years. And the image of her was still so strong that it was almost as if he could reach out and touch her. She had never disappeared and slipped away. She had stayed right with him, like a ghost over his shoulder, the entire time.

Why was it different for him? His mother had told him that Vejiita had eventually grown into nothing more than a distant memory --- still painful, but distant. There were days when she didn’t even think about him, nights when she didn’t even miss him sleeping by her side. And yet Tayhei was all he ever thought about. He thought about her when it was warm outside and he could feel the breeze caressing against his skin, just like her soft hands used to. And he thought about her when he saw the deep green color of leaves wet with rain in the springtime and the golden wheat that swayed back and forth in the peak of summer. Some days it seemed as though everything he came across represented some small piece of her --- somehow her memory had encompassed every aspect of his life, wrapping itself up into everything around him. For the longest time he had imagined that her memory was so vivid because she would eventually come back to him. He thought that with a love so strong, with a memory so strong, it only meant that it wasn’t possible for him to live without her.

But she hadn’t come back. He had waited all of these years for her, patiently living off of the snatches of green and gold and the scent of flowers or the ocean. He had built the world back up for her with his bare hands, he had erected all of the cities and paved all of the streets. He had erased the jinzouningen and made the world a safer place where people didn’t have to worry about what was beyond the horizon or what was lurking in the shadows. He had done all of this for her, so that she would have something to come back to --- a world that she would want to come back to. And she still hadn’t come. Not even after he begged, not even after he had prayed for it every day of his life since the moment she took her last breath. She remained nothing more than a memory --- vivid, but not real. He couldn’t touch a memory; he couldn’t run his fingers through her hair or hold her in his arms.

A tear slipped down his cheek and fell onto his hands, startling him. He brushed the remainders of tears away and looked back down at the sword in his hands again. As strong as he considered himself to be, he was weak. He was too weak to let go. His younger counterpart had been able to give this sword away, this sword that obviously meant a great deal to him. The younger Trunks had been able to let go of his past and move forward in his life, looking towards the promise of a brighter future and a better life. But as much as he tried, as much as he struggled, he couldn’t let Tayhei go. He simply couldn’t do it. Even though he knew that there was no chance of her coming back and even though he was certain that he would never get to hold her again, his heart still had a glimmer of hope. And that small, almost invisible shred of hope was enough to keep him holding on.

He set the sword aside for a moment and went to the corner of the room, where he kept the small bag of items from the future that he had brought. He picked up the worn canvas and undid the straps, searching through the mess of clothing to find what he was looking for. When his fingers touched the soft glossy feel of paper, he grabbed and brought it out into the light.

It was a small stack of pictures --- snapshots of his life from when he was still happy, from when Tayhei was still alive. They were bound together with a string of leather, which was so worn and old that it was nearly falling apart in places. He gently pulled on the string and released the pictures, which spilled out onto the soft carpet beneath him and scattered along the floor. He stared at them all at once, refusing at first to focus on any particular picture or any particular smile. He just took them all in with one glance, gazing at the collage of his life and his happy times. Everything had seemed so much shaper and so much brighter to him then. Instead of the blurred, depressing world that he resided in now, this world was brimming with hope and love. Although the jinzouningen had yet to be destroyed and their lives were still in peril, there was always the hope for something better.

It was strange how he had been so happy back then, back when the jinzouningen had still been alive and terrorizing the Earth. And now that they were gone and they were rebuilding their world, he was miserable. The only conclusion that he could come to was that Tayhei had been his only source of happiness. She had been the thing that had held him together during those hard times and brought him joy even in the darkest of days. It had been her constant love and encouragement that had given him the strength and hope it took to be able to defeat the jinzouningen. He had strived to make the world a better place, not just for himself, but for her --- for the family that they would eventually have together. And when she died, it was almost as if he had killed the jinzouningen for nothing. Yes, their world was a better place now, and they no longer had to live in fear. But he didn’t have anyone to share it with. He had no future. He had no life. He had nothing.

He let his eyes wander to one of his favorite pictures --- a picture that he had stared at endlessly after she had died. It was a picture that she didn’t know he had taken; he had caught her in a quiet moment as she sat beside a tree, staring wistfully up at the sky.

Just looking at her face in the picture made his heart lurch. He was ashamed that he had come here to this world and tried to steal away another Tayhei. He felt on some level, as if he had betrayed her memory. The differences between the Tayhei that he loved and the Tayhei that he knew in this world were unmistakable. He should have known that it would have never worked. Although the Tayhei of this world shared the same beautiful green eyes and long golden hair, she just wasn’t the same. She didn’t have the mixture of wonder and peacefulness in her eyes, or the heart that would do anything for anyone. The outside shell might have been exactly the same, but the soul was completely different. He didn’t love this Tayhei --- he was still too much in love with the woman that had died so many years ago.

And that was almost more disheartening. Because it meant that there were no other options for love in his life. If he couldn’t even force himself to love the timeline counterpart of his Tayhei, then what chance would he have falling for someone else? It would be impossible. His heart still belonged to Tayhei; there was no one else that he wanted to share his life with. No one. And that only meant more waiting for him, and more hoping. Because if he was too weak and too in love to let go, he had no other options. He would have to wait for her until he drew his last breath. At least then he knew that he could be with her in death. Even if they no longer had their physical bodies, at least their souls would be able to be with each other. At least he would finally feel at peace, knowing that he was with her again.

He gathered the pictures back up, and wrapped them together with the leather strap, feeling as though he were wrapping up his own memory of her tightly in his chest. He had another long wait ahead of him. And until he found her again, whether it was in life or in death, all he could do was hope.

He found his little sister in her room. Her blinds were open and the sunlight was pouring onto the floor, where she was lying in front of a huge piece of paper. Her box of freshly sharpened crayons was next to her, as well as a few pens and markers. He stopped for a moment to smile at her. She looked so cute as she lay there, coloring with her tongue sticking out, her bare feet kicking behind her. He had been so wrapped up in his own problems lately that he hadn’t even spent any time with her at all. It made him feel guilty to know that he had been so selfish, but he had a feeling that Bra would forgive him for anything. Despite their sibling rivalry, they both loved each other very much. They had to stick together to be able to survive life with their family. Things were far from normal here at Capsule Corporation and if they didn’t have each other to lean on, they just might not have made it. He stepped in through the doorway and walked over to her quietly, not wanting to startle her. “Bra?”

“Hai?” She answered pleasantly, not looking up from her project.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m drawing a picture of everyone together, so that Mirai Bulma and Mirai Trunks can have something to take back with them.” She replied as though it were rather obvious. Trunks walked behind her and took a long, careful look at what she had drawn. It was something like a huge reunion picture, with everyone that was part of their lives drawn on it. The Son family and Koronu were on the far left side, nothing more than four blurs of fair skin and dark hair. The jinzouningen were next to them, with Kuririn and Marron standing behind and grinning happily. Piccolo and Dende were waving, looking much greener than usual, and Videl, Gohan, and Pan were next to them. Their visitors from the future were in the middle as well, smiling and looking a lot happier than they had since they had first gotten here. Their own family (including Tayhei) was on the far right side. He squinted and looked closer at that. He admired his own mess of purple hair and the Capsule Corporation tee shirt that his sister had put him in. And then he noticed something odd about their family portrait.

He turned his head to stare at Bra. “Is Otousan hugging us?”

She smiled. “Hai.”

Even though it was nothing more than just a childish drawing, Trunks had to admit that it was pretty comical to see his father hugging them so tightly with a sloppy grin on his face. Although it was cute that she had drawn something like that, it still made his heart ache slightly. Because he knew that in reality, this photo would never happen. In reality, his father would never hold them so lovingly, and he certainly wouldn’t allow himself to smile as though he were a member of the Son family. Their father had far too much pride for that. He knew that he favored Bra a little more, and that he had actually hugged her on occasion and showed affection, but that was nothing compared to the love that was shown in Bra’s family portrait. He placed a gentle hand on Bra’s shoulder and met her sparkling blue eyes. “Bra, you know that he’s not really like that.”

“Yes he is.” She argued wisely. She pointed to Vejiita’s grinning face with a blue crayon and smiled again --- a childish smile that seemed to hold all the secrets of the universe inside of it. “He just can’t ever show it. I think if he could, he would hug us like that all the time. But he is a prince, and they can never let themselves do things like that. He has to act tough and mean so that no one thinks he is weak. That’s what Mama always used to tell me about him. She loved him a lot you know, but we never saw her hug him either. She had to pretend like she didn’t like him, so that everyone would know that she was strong enough to be on her own.”

“I guess I never thought about it like that.” He admitted, feeling somewhat proud that his little sister was able to see things so deeply. She truly was much wiser and more mature than any other little girl her age, and she showed such a capacity for feelings. It made him happy to know that she would be able to see people for what they were when she grew older. It would help her to make wise decisions and become a stronger person. And it also made his heart feel lighter to know that she was finally coming to grips with their mother’s death and their father’s behavior. She had done it all on her own, without any kind of lectures or help from anyone. She had looked at the world through a child’s eye and still managed to understand it all on an adult level. “Bra….”

“I know that he didn’t let her die on purpose.” She said quickly, continuing on with her coloring. Although her little voice was strong, he noticed that she was drawing much slower and that her hands were shaking just a bit. He thought that it must be hard on her to have to think of things like that at this age. But he admired her for being so brave and for being able to talk about these things without even so much as letting a single tear fall from her eyes. She stopped coloring again and turned to look at him, a slight frown on her pretty little face. “I think he thought that I blamed him for what happened to her, but I didn’t. I’m sad that she is gone, but I don’t think it’s his fault. That’s why he left, you know. He thought that he had failed us. He thought that we wouldn’t love him anymore because he had let us down. He didn’t think he was worthy of being our father anymore. But I let him know that I knew. I let him know that it was okay.”

He tilted his head and stared at his sister in wonder. “How do you know all these things, Bra?”

“I just do.” She told him simply, then held out a crayon to him. “Do you want to help me color?”

As he took the crayon from her and settled down beside her on the floor, he finally began to understand what her picture really meant. It wasn’t a portrait of what she wished everyone really was, it was a portrait of what everyone could be. Their father was hugging them and looking as though he were actually happy, both of the jinzouningen looked normal and content, and even Tayhei looked as though she weren’t about to start yelling or snarling. Both of the future visitors looked as though the past was no longer controlling their lives, and even Piccolo looked somewhat pleasant. This was Bra’s way of showing what everyone was capable of, the happiness that they could reach if they only let go of the things that were holding them back. As he stared at the grinning, joyful version of himself in her drawing, he decided that he wanted to be that person. He wanted to be able to move forward and let the past change his life, not run it. He needed to let his mother’s death make him into something stronger, not something weaker.

He stared at Bra’s messy drawing of a very happy Tayhei.