Mirai Trunks looked down at Bra and moved his hand over her soft hair again, feeling strangely detached from his body. He couldn’t really decide how he felt inside; all of his emotions were tumbling through him and crashing up against one another, creating a tension headache so fierce that he began to see stars in front of his eyes. His first thought was that what happened was terrible. After all, Juuhachi-gou had a family: a young daughter and a loving husband. But at the same time, he could not help but think of Juuhachi-gou and Juunana-gou as the same monsters that had ruined his life in the future world. Yes, he realized that things were different in this timeline, but he knew that he would never have been able to look into those ice blue eyes and see anything but the evil that he had witnessed in his own world. He could never look at the jinzouningen and see anything but the horrible creatures that had killed Tayhei, Gohan, his father and everyone else that had ever mattered to him and his family.

He knew that his mother was probably pondering these same thoughts. She had suffered just as much as he did --- more than he did, even. She had a right to hate the jinzouningen as well. She had tried to tell him that she was able to separate between the terrible jinzouningen of the future and the supposedly good jinzouningen of this timeline, but he knew better. No one from their future world could ever look at the jinzouningen and feel anything but fear and anger. But unfortunately, her heart was too kind to ignore the fact that even the jinzouningen had needed help. Whether she had hate for them in her heart or not didn’t matter. She just wanted to make sure that Kuririn and Marron were taken care of. And also, though Mirai Trunks knew it was fairly selfish of her, she had wanted to save the jinzouningen to prove a point. She had wanted to show everyone that she was still capable, still intelligent, and still willing to help.

Trunks was consoling Bra now; he was bent down in front of her, holding her little hands and talking to her in a gentle, comforting tone. Mirai Trunks had wanted to comfort Bra as well, but now that he was standing here with them he couldn’t find the right words. What could he possibly say to make Bra feel better? He had nothing positive to say about death. He had nothing positive to say about the jinzouningen. And he certainly didn’t have anything positive to say about Kuririn and Marron. As far as he was concerned, the entire mess was just awful. There were no comforting words. In a matter like this, all you could do was simply shake your head and wish that it had never happened in the first place. But he didn’t know how he was supposed to explain all of that to Bra; she was too young to understand how life really worked.

“I think I need to go help my mother.” Mirai Trunks said suddenly, and his hand abruptly stopped petting Bra’s head. His eyes found the eyes of his younger counterpart and he straightened up, mentally preparing himself. “I know that she is really upset right now; I can feel it.”

His younger counterpart nodded, barely even listening to him. Mirai Trunks wasn’t that insulted by the fact that he was being ignored --- it was better than having the boy yell at him all the time. He looked around to try and locate Tayhei and found that she was in some sort of a deep discussion with Dende. Although he wanted to let her know where he was going, he figured that she wouldn’t really care either. All at once, he began to feel like even more of an outsider. He truly did not belong here in this world, and it was beginning to show. They didn’t need him to be here; they probably didn’t even want him to be here. And they were right. He hadn’t come here this time to save anyone or anything --- he hadn’t come to warn them of impending danger or help them fight any kind of battle. He had come here for purely selfish reasons. And perhaps all of the events that had transpired were because of that.

He walked over to the edge of the lookout and peered over the side, taking in the entire world with just one glance. Through the clouds and the layers of blue in the sky, he thought that he could almost see his mother’s tear streaked face. She needed him right now, and that was more important than anything else.

When Marron saw the familiar bright colors of Kami’s lookout, her heart jumped slightly and she felt her stomach plunge. The gleaming white of the tiles and the vibrant green of all the plants gave her no comfort this time; for some reason, it just made her feel as if she should not be there --- as if she were steering her Capsule Car towards something truly horrible. She didn’t know why she felt this way, but no matter what she did to try and calm herself, the feeling would not go away. She knew that she should be in high spirits; they had just collected the last dragonball and she was about to make the wish for her mother. She was about to give thousands of people their lives back, and bring an amazing amount of happiness to those who thought they had lost their loved ones during the attack on Satan City. But although they were through with their dragonball hunt and things were starting to look as though they were going to be okay, she still had a nagging feeling of darkness lurking in her heart. She still felt as though there were something wrong.

She cornered the Capsule Car expertly, moving to land it next to one of the main buildings. It had been quite an enjoyable ride, and she was secretly glad that Tayhei had given it to her for their dragonball mission; it had made it much easier for her to keep up with the others. Brushing the wisps of hair out of her eyes, she turned to see Goten, Gohan, Piccolo, and Koronu drop down beside her Capsule Car. She was a little surprised to see that all of them had worried looks on their faces as well; they all managed to look every bit as apprehensive as she felt. This did nothing to calm her --- in fact, it made her even more uneasy. If someone as calm and collected as Piccolo could look worried about something, then they were obviously in trouble. She eased herself out of the Capsule Car, still feeling as though she were heading towards something truly terrible.

Tayhei and Dende were standing together at the edge of the lookout in a deep conversation, but as Marron approached them with the others, Tayhei suddenly shut her mouth. Her green eyes moved away quickly, and then to Marron’s confusion, the older girl quietly walked away without even so much as another world. She tried not to let this bother her, but there was something strange in the way that Tayhei was walking across the cool white tiles. It looked as though she were trying to escape from something, her footsteps quick and professional instead of the usual slow, swaying stroll. Marron had assumed that Tayhei would be excited that the dragonballs were here. She had actually half expected Tayhei to smuggle them away from her straight off and run off to wish Trunks into a frog or something equally as evil. But instead, Tayhei had just walked away as if the dragonballs meant nothing to her anymore. With the same, sinking feeling in her stomach, she turned her eyes back to look at Dende.

He remained standing in the same position, his face unreadable, leaning on his walking stick. He beckoned to her with his free hand and motioned for the others to stay behind. She heard their footsteps halt and could actually feel the tension building back there as the others wondered what was happening. Feeling strangely weightless and numb, Marron stepped towards Dende. Absently, she reached up to take hold of one of her pigtails, twisting the golden strands between her thumb and her index finger. Never in her life had she felt more alone. The swaying palm branches and gleaming white floors did nothing to soothe her soul as she walked, nor did the warm breeze that was floating through the air. She felt strangely cold and panicked, as if she were swimming through a storming sea and trying to find something solid to hold onto. But the only things around her were vicious black waves, all threatening to swallow her up and push her down below the surface.

Dende greeted her with a small nod of his head, looking down at her with kind, dark eyes and a compassionate expression. He only had to speak one, simply sentence and she knew. “I’m sorry.”

Everything shattered in that instant. Although she remained expressionless and motionless on the outside, she could feel everything on the inside breaking into pieces and slowly falling to the ground. The pieces of the mother and her uncle shattered first, quickly followed by what remained of her heart and her mind. All of the precious memories of her family just cracked and disappeared like dust into the wind, and Marron suddenly began to feel very lightheaded and dizzy. Everything swayed around her in time with the vibrant green palms overhead, and everything quieted down until she could hear nothing but the silent whisper of wind around her ears. Her legs failed her then, her knees seemingly turning into water and sliding out from underneath her. She crumpled to the smooth white floor in a shattered, defeated heap, her heart aching steadily and painfully in her chest. She closed her eyes, letting a lone tear slide down her cheek.

She thought of her mother; the woman that she loved more than anything else in the world. She thought of all the kind things that her mother had done for her, all of the tiny little good deeds that had slipped by unnoticed, and all of the patient, gentle words that had come from her mouth. She thought of how warm and right it felt to be curled up with her mother on the couch, watching a movie or reading their books together. She thought of the way that her mother had strived to be so normal, how she had always tried to feel and love and experience life the way that normal people did. And now all of that was gone. Every bit of it had fluttered out of her mind and out of her heart the moment that Dende had spoken those words. Her mother was dead. Her uncle was dead. Her family had just been torn apart, cut in half.

Dende kneeled down and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I’m deeply sorry.” He repeated slowly. “I know how much you cared for both your mother and your uncle. If you would like to go home and be with your father now, the others will understand. You’ve already gone through much more than a young girl should have to go through, and no one would blame you for needing some time to yourself right now. Let them take you home, back to your father, and these wishes can be made another day.”

Marron pondered that for a moment, her mind still reeling from all of the pain that she was experiencing, both emotional and physical. She had just lost her mother and her uncle. Her heart was going through perhaps the most strenuous, awful pain that she had ever felt before, stabbing and writhing until she thought that she might die from it. This was what it felt like to lose someone; this is what it felt like to have the people that you cared about the most in your life suddenly and unfairly taken away from you. Everything that she was feeling now was exactly what everyone in Satan City had gone through. All of those surviving family members and friends had to deal with this wrenching pain; all of them had to feel the inescapable, black loneliness sweeping over them like waves. They were feeling exactly what she was feeling, except for one difference: she could take their pain away. Their suffering didn’t have to go on. She could make a wish today that would give thousands of people back their loves and their lives.

Her mother would have wanted her to do this. And her mother wouldn’t want her to wait either. The longer she waited, the more people had to have this terrible aching in their hearts. And she didn’t want anyone to have to feel this kind of empty horror inside of them. She wanted to make this wish; she wanted to be able to set them free. Even if her own heart was grieving, she still wanted to be able to give back the joy and love that those people deserved.

“No.” She whispered softly in a voice that no longer sounded like her own. “I need to make my wish.”

Dende stared at her for a long moment, then straightened up with a soft, peaceful smile on his face. “Hai. Yes, you do.”

ChiChi sewed quietly, her hands moving ceaselessly as she worked, moving the needle in and out through the soft fabric. Gokuu had managed to rip the sleeve off of yet another one of his dress shirts. She had no idea how the man could go through clothes so quickly, but it seemed as though he were sheepishly handing her another torn article of clothing every week. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear that he was running out in the woods and antagonizing wolverines or something equally as foolish. She didn’t mind the task of mending his clothes, though --- no matter how much she might pretend to get angry with him. At least she could feel useful while she was sewing. Gokuu couldn’t really object to her using just her hands to do a fairly simple project like this. Also, at the rate that he was going now, if he didn’t let her sew, he would be completely out of clothes by the end of the month. She sniffed, turning her chin up haughtily and staring angrily at the television in front of her. He was only being silly about these things anyway. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself and doing her usual chores.

To allow the anger to seep away from her, she shook her head slightly and concentrated on the news. She had been watching it all morning long for updates on the jinzouningen protesters that seemed to be intent on finding the androids and destroying them. So far, nothing new had come up. There had been a few tearful interviews and a several angry protesters with chilling vendettas, but so far the press had not retained any new information as to the actual whereabouts of the jinzouningen. ChiChi snapped the thread with her teeth and finished tying up the seam, keeping her dark eyes on the television screen. A reporter had just appeared in front of a tall white building that ChiChi recognized as some sort of structure in downtown East Capitol City; she didn’t get into the city that often other than to visit Capsule Corporation, but it did look vaguely familiar. The reporter, whose blond curls were tied back into a windblown chignon, was speaking in a voice that sounded just a bit too excited for the regular morning report. ChiChi frowned and listened carefully.

“---Rumored to have been checked into East Capitol City Hospital under the name of Ethel Pickensnell by Bulma Briefs, Chief Executive of Capsule Corporation.” The reporter clipped professionally. ChiChi straightened up at the mentioning of Bulma’s name and set Gokuu’s shirt down, the sewing project forgotten. The reporter gripped onto her microphone with one hand and pointed to a crowd that was growing outside of the hospital doors. “Eyewitnesses report to seeing Ms. Briefs enter the hospital loading area in an unmarked van shortly before the check-in was completed. The description of the patient was not clear, but reports from witnesses have led the police to believe that the patient checked in under the name of Ethel Pickensnell is actually jinzouningen Juuhachi-gou.”

ChiChi was just about to run for the phone when a familiar face appeared on the screen. She sat back down uneasily and watched with wide eyes as Mirai Trunks strode purposefully towards the reporter. The future warrior looked tired and frustrated, but somehow still managed to appear professional; his lavender hair was straight and out of his eyes for once. When the reporter saw him, her eyes widened a bit; she must have been sizing him up and recognizing him as the son of the infamous Bulma Briefs. Of course, their future visitors really had nothing to do with this world, but neither the audience nor the reporter would be able to sense that. They only saw the lavender hair, the handsome jaw line, and the bright blue eyes; they didn’t look to see the shadows that were hiding underneath the good looks.

The reporter all but shoved the microphone into Mirai Trunks’s face, her eyes aglow with the excitement of the story. “You must be here to issue a statement. Can you tell us how your mother is involved with the jinzouningen fugitive that recently destroyed Satan City? Surely Ms. Briefs must know that harboring criminals is a federal offense.”

Calmly, Mirai Trunks shook his head and stared straight into the camera. Even though ChiChi was miles away from the boy, she felt the sudden impulse to reach out and place a hand on his shoulder. He looked so utterly tired and defeated that it nearly killed her; she had never seen that kind of sadness in Trunks’s eyes before. Then again, the Trunks that she knew hadn’t had to live through a lifetime of tragedy like Mirai Trunks had. This was just one more thing that Mirai Trunks would have to recover from --- one more painful memory that he would have to lock away. “She wasn’t harboring a criminal. She was trying to protect the world from another threat of danger. She set out to disable both jinzouningen and she has. They both died in the early morning hours and no longer pose a threat to your world.”

ChiChi gasped. She brought both hands up to her mouth and held them there tightly, her eyes burning with tears. Normally, she would never have believed a statement like that, especially if it were being issued to the press. They had had to cover up many incidents over the years, and they had told the press several different stories, each more colorful than the next. But there was something in Mirai Trunks’s sad eyes that made her believe what he had said. And despite the fact that Mirai Trunks had been so set on killing the jinzouningen himself earlier, he was upset about it now. Her heart began to ache slowly; that familiar, stinging pain that came with the death of a friend or loved one. Though she had never been close to either Juunana-gou or Juuhachi-gou, she still considered them a part of her life. And more importantly, they were a part of Kuririn’s life. He had just lost his wife, and Marron had just lost her mother.

It was strange how death always manage to find them. It seemed as though they could barely even go a year without losing someone. When they had come back from Sukuashi, she had thought that maybe it was over. She thought that the vicious cycle of death that followed them around had finally been stopped. After all, the deaths of Bulma and Yamucha had been hard enough to bear. She had honestly thought that it would have been enough just to lose them, that it was punishment enough to have two of her best friends taken away from her. But it looked as though fate were not through with them yet; no one in their small circle of friends was safe from the power of death. It moved around them relentlessly like shadows, never giving up its cruel pursuit.

She wiped away a tear with the back of her hand and sucked in a shaky breath, forcing herself to regain composure. Yes, death would always follow them. No one could ever escape these things; it was all a part of their entwined fates and destinies. But it gave her comfort to know that things like love and happiness traveled on the wings on death. With each death, there was a new beginning, a new life. It was true that new life would never have the strength to replace the memories or the gaping holes that death so often left. The emptiness that they felt inside of their hearts could never be filled again --- at least not in the same way. But love would find a way, and it would flourish inside of them until it began to ease the pain that came with death.

Mirai Bulma had never been so relieved to see her son. When she looked up to see his familiar face in the doorway, her heart had actually lightened in her chest. Suddenly, she didn’t feel so chained down and depressed anymore. Yes, she had just lost a lot --- her self respect, her patients, her belief in miracles, but the love of her son still remained. He was still there for her, no matter if she failed or not, just like he always had been before. It was wonderful how she could always count on him to be there, standing guard over her and helping her through the most difficult times of her life. He was most definitely the parent in this relationship, though she would never admit it to him. As she stared at him now, she felt like a lost child that had just finally found her home again. She brushed the limp turquoise coils back away from her face and stepped through the wreckage towards him, blinding making her way to the door.

“Okaasan,” He began, as if he could read her mind. “It is not your fault.”

She shook her head slowly, tears burning in her eyes. He was wrong. How could it not be her fault? Everything that she had touched over the years had eventually cracked and turned into dust. She could never do anything right, it seemed. She was always striving to help people and make things better, but no matter how much effort she gave, nothing ever worked out. The jinzouningen were still dead and there was nothing that she could do to change it. She just simply wasn’t meant to be here --- and she certainly wasn’t meant to help. Her eyes couldn’t even bear to take in the sight of Kuririn anymore, who was still resolutely holding onto Juuhachi-gou’s limp body. She had let him down. She had crushed all of his hopes --- just utterly destroyed him. Because of her incompetence, he had lost his wife. And she knew how bitterly painful losing someone that you loved could be.

He gathered her up into a hug, resting his chin on the top of her head. Numbly, she wrapped her arms around him as well, thankful that she had a son who was so kind and so understanding. If it hadn’t been for his presence over the years, her spirit would have died long ago. She felt his chin move against her hair and then he spoke in a voice that soft and wise. “We don’t have control over everything, Okaasan. There are some things in life that are simply destined to happen. You did all that you could to help the jinzouningen, to help Kuririn. We all know that. It was just time for the andorids’ lives to be taken. I don’t know why they had to die --- I don’t think anyone is supposed to know the answer to those kinds of questions, but I do know that it was not your fault. You did the best that you could.”

Vejiita stepped through the wreckage of the operating room as well, and came to their side, standing proudly amidst all of the destruction. “They wouldn’t have had much of a life, anyway. They died the day that Gero placed them on his examining table. There wasn’t much left inside of them except for an evil soul and distant memories of the lives that they had lived before. It was foolish to even attempt something like this.”

Really, Vejiita was right. It was foolish of her to think that she had any kind of control over life and death. If her experiences had taught her anything, it was that life was not something that was meant to be held onto. If you tried to grasp it too tightly, it simply slid from your hands and melted away. There was no use in trying to change the course of things --- in the end, fate always won. She and Trunks should never have come to this world; they had done nothing here except cause suffering and pain. And now that she had accepted the fact that she was to live her life the way that it had been intended for her to live, there was no use in staying. She couldn’t protect the jinzouningen, she couldn’t change her life, and she couldn’t find love in a place where it did not exist.

She needed to go back where she belonged. She needed to build cities and help the people of her own world just struggle to survive. This world might be the place where all of her hopes and dreams lay, but it was not where she was needed. She should go back to her own world now, not because she had been defeated or because she had lost everyone’s respect, but because it was where she belonged. She knew that now, and felt more certain about it than she had ever felt about anything before. She slowly tilted her chin down and closed her eyes, letting her tears fall softly to the hospital floor beneath them.