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Passport to Paradise	By : gokugirl Category: Dragon Ball Z > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 3591 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own DragonballZ, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 14
- 15
- 16
A/N: There's another
graphic violence warning for this chapter. Last one, I promise. :)

Chapter 15

Vegeta didn't receive a response when he pounded on the
bedroom door so he kicked it open. Kakarotto was still sitting exactly where
he'd left him in the very same position, only now a faint white glow had
surrounded his entire body. He didn't want to disturb him, not when things
finally seemed to be falling into place for him, but there was no time to waste.
The Kir were going to break through the Saiya-jin defense -- it was only a
matter of time -- and they had to find the gateway before they could guard it.

Biting his lip, he made a quick decision to leave him to his meditation for just
a little while longer while he went to retrieve the book and scour it for clues.
It was somewhere in the castle, they all knew that now, but where?

'The forest is here to protect the castle and its inhabitants,' he
thought, trying to work through the problem. 'And the inhabitants are here to
protect the gateway.' Slowly his eyes widened as something occurred to him.
"Which probably means that the gateway was here first! The only thing that
was here before the castle was the land it's sitting on. Is the gateway
underground?"

He slammed the book shut and hightailed it back to his bedroom. The door was
still wide open, he could see that from down the hall. He could also see the
lone Kir warrior entering the hall from the front staircase. Vegeta slowed his
footsteps and slid his sword from its scabbard. The barbarian was closer to
where Kakarotto sat completely oblivious to his surroundings. He was checking
into every room, probably searching for innocents to slaughter. Vegeta gripped
the hilt of his short sword tightly, nervous sweat slicking his palm. One false
move and he could alert the man to the presence of a victim yet there was no
time to descend the back stairway and sneak around behind him. The prince was
truly between a rock and a hard place.

"Wake up, Kakarotto," he said without breath as he crept down the
hall. "Come on. Don't let that bastard hurt you." Vegeta never before
wished so strongly to have magical ability or at least a set of throwing daggers
along with good distance aim. He wondered how effective rushing the man would
be. Maybe he would be able to surprise him long enough to take him down.
Hopefully he was not one of the magically gifted Kir because one good spell
would be able to take him down.

"Goddamn it," Vegeta cursed harshly. He had absolutely no good options
and time was running out. Raising his sword, Vegeta ran down the hallway as
quickly as he could. The thick stone muffled his footfalls and he was able to
get reasonably close to the warrior before he was noticed. Trapping the other
man in the doorway of a guest room, Vegeta swung his blade with the intention of
beheading him, but the blow glanced off the iron spirals decorating the man's
wrist guard. Vegeta fell back just enough so that he had room to swing again and
it allowed the Kir enough time to draw his own weapon.

"I don't have time to fight you," the prince growled as he deflected
his enemy's attack. "You're nothing in the grand scheme of things."
The barbarian, unsurprisingly, did not respond.

Their swords clashed again. Vegeta braced his feet and tried to shove his
opponent off-balance so that he could end the fight quickly. While he was
preoccupied with searching for an opening above, he never noticed the foot that
darted out and knocked into his own. Vegeta felt his feet go out from under him
and he fell hard to the floor.

The Kir advanced, his sword poised to strike. For a moment, all that Vegeta was
able to focus on was the pain from the stone coming into forceful impact with
his spine. It felt like his entire body had gone numb. He took deep breaths to
push past the pain and struggled to raise his foot up high enough to come into
contact with the Kir's groin. Not the most manly of fighting techniques, but
incredibly effective nonetheless. At least it would have been incredibly
effective if Vegeta had gotten a chance to execute it. As it were, he was barely
able to gather enough energy to avoid the blade of his sword.

"Isn't your leader missing you?" he asked desperately. Anything to
distract his enemy. But the Kir was too focused on his goal. The sword was
raised again and Vegeta took a big risk. As it descended upon him once more, he
reached out and grabbed the blade with his left hand before he had gained too
much momentum. It cut deeply into his leather glove then into his flesh,
severing quite a few tendons and blood vessels before hitting bone. Vegeta
hissed from between his teeth but would not allow any other expression of agony
to escape. While the barbarian was momentarily stopped, he brought up his sword
and stabbed forward, sliding it into his gut then upward between his ribs. The
Kir stared at him blankly for a moment, then stared down at where only the hilt
of Vegeta's sword protruded from his body. A dark stain was spreading rapidly
outward on his tunic from the wound. He sank slowly to his knees then fell
backward onto his back.

Suddenly the man smiled. "My death has served our cause well," he
whispered, coughing up blood.

The prince's blood ran cold. "What are you talking about?" he asked
sternly. When he didn't receive a response, he crawled forward and grabbed the
man by his shoulder with his good hand, shaking him. "Answer me!"

"You've wasted too much time with me," he said finally, his words
emerging thick and wet. "By now, Ra Naga has opened the gateway. Soon our
lord will be free once more!" A blissful smile spread across his face then
even as the light dimmed from his dark eyes. In another moment, his stare was
fixed on nothing, his eyes as empty and as dead as a doll's.

But Vegeta was not there to witness it. He ran to his bedroom where Kakarotto
was just now emerging from his meditation. His hand was refusing to be ignored
any longer and the pain was invading his nervous system to the point that he
almost couldn't function. He grabbed a shirt from one of his drawers and set
about removing one of the sleeves to use as a bandage. Unfortunately it was
awkward with only one hand.

"Vegeta, what in the world happened to you?" Kakarotto asked in shock.
Blood slicked the prince's skin until his hand was only a mere outline in a sea
of red. He grabbed his lover's wrist and pulled him into the bathroom to wash
away the blood.

"There's no time to go into it now. There's not even enough time to do
this." Vegeta tugged on his arm to try and get it away from the teen, but
Kakarotto wouldn't let him.

"It'll get infected if you don't let me take care of it properly."

"If we don't get down to the dungeon as fast as we can, infection will be
the least of our worries!"

Kakarotto forced him to stay still while he gently pulled off his glove and
washed away the blood. When the wound was finally revealed, he made a low sound
of horror in his throat. "What happened to you?" he asked
again. The wound was gaping. Without stitches there was no way it would close on
its own. "You have to go see the healer. If you don't, you might even lose
function in your hand."

"There's no time," he repeated insistently.

"Bullshit," Kakarotto growled. "I don't care if the entire
world's on fire. If there's a chance that I can prevent you from being seriously
injured, I'm going to take it."

The prince gazed up into his eyes and knew that there was no point in arguing
further. There really wasn't any time to waste. "If I go to the healer you
have to go down to the dungeons and stop Ra Naga. He's close to opening the
gateway. Can you do it?"

Nodding, Kakarotto said, "I think so. I won't know for sure until I get
there."

"Good enough. Take the back stairs down, head right. Across from the
kitchen there will be another stairway hidden behind a door. I don't know
exactly where he'll be down there, but I expect you'll be able to sense what's
going on." Vegeta pressed his lips together firmly, shoving down the
emotion that was welling up. "Take my sword. I know that you don't have any
training, but I want you to have a last resort in case your fists don't make an
impact or your magic fails again. Kakarotto, don't take any unnecessary risks. I
want you back alive."

"I won't, I promise." After transferring the sword belt to his own
waist, he did the very thing he knew Vegeta was holding back on. He bent down
and captured his lips in a desperate kiss, a tear breaking free and trickling
down between them both. "I love you, Vegeta."

"Kakarotto, I release you," he whispered against his lips.
"You're no longer bound to me. Heroes should not be slaves."

The teen pulled back finally, knowing that if he waited any longer to do so that
he might never separate himself from his lover. "I will always be
bound to you. Never forget that."

Then he was gone. Vegeta gazed at the doorway for a while afterward, wishing
that he could be right by Kakarotto's side. He had little fear that his lover
would fail to stop Ra Naga or, in the event that the worst-case scenario came to
pass, stop the Darkness itself, but his natural instincts demanded that he be
with his love. He needed to see for his own eyes that Kakarotto would be okay.

As bad as his hand looked and felt, it would be a bad idea not to do what his
lover had told him to do. He wouldn't be able to help him anyway and might even
prove to be a distraction.

"If you get yourself killed, Kakarotto, I'm coming after you." The
only witness to this promise was himself, but he knew he would not break it. A
life without Kakarotto was not a life worth living.

***

There was no one around to stop him but he could hear the sounds of battle in
the distance. As long as he could still hear the clash of blades and the battle
cries of men he could have faith that the war wasn't lost, that the Saiya-jin
were still rallying. It gave him hope that there was still time.

Several women and children passed him on their way to find a safe hiding place.
Some of them wore the plain, unadorned clothing of servants while others looked
to be the mates and children of the soldiers. They only paid enough attention to
him to decide that he wasn't a threat before hurriedly moving on. Ahead in the
distance he could hear more feminine voices.

He found the door exactly where Vegeta said it would be. It was made of very
heavy dark wood and had only a hole where the lock should be. A quick glance
down at the landing showed that the strong-looking lock was still intact but had
been blasted right out of the wood.

The stairs headed down into darkness. No light lit them save for what trickled
in from the kitchen. He wondered if they were steep and if one misstep would
send him plummeting to his death. A strange sound from below and the flickering
of white light in the distance made him completely forget about the unseen
danger.

Kakarotto descended the stairs as quickly as he dared. They were, in fact,
steep, but not as steep as he'd feared. The moment his foot hit level ground, he
took off in the direction of the light at top speed.

Vegeta couldn't find the healer and that was truly a shame since he felt dizzy
and weak from blood loss. He'd made his way slowly but surely back to Alain's
room only to find the woman gone and Alain asleep. There was a bored man
guarding the door who had seen the woman leave, but he didn't have any idea
where she had gone other than the vague direction of "right". There
were a lot of things "right", far too many for him to count.

So he assumed that she was with his father administering to the wounded
Saiya-jin soldiers. The courtyard was a long way away from the second floor and
he didn't know if he had the strength to make it there. He also didn't know if
he would be able to defend himself against the Kir warriors who had, no doubt,
invaded the castle. If he could just rest for a moment, he would start off again
in a bit to find someone to stitch up his hand.

Quietly, Vegeta fell against the wall and slid down it on his back to sit on the
floor. His promise to Kakarotto would not be broken. He would be perfectly fine
by the time his lover returned.

Vegeta slumped, closing his eyes, and just as quietly fainted.

The flickering light increased in intensity the closer he drew to the source.
About half a dozen small, dust-ridden cells later, he came upon the barbarian
chieftain Ra Naga who was in the process of opening the gateway. And, judging by
the look of things, he had almost succeeded.

Kakarotto stepped into the large cell cautiously. There were heavy magicks
swirling around in there. He felt like one wrong move would be detrimental to
his health. He brought up a hand to shield his eyes then tried to determine if
he had a chance to stop Ra Naga from achieving his goal.

The Kir's voice rose in volume as the portal of light grew larger. Kakarotto's
entire body tensed with the need to act, but he didn't know what spell was being
used or even if it would be safe to stop Ra Naga now that he'd begun. He also
had no idea if he could reverse the spell once it was complete, but if he got
rid of the Darkness then no one would find it a good idea to try and free it
again. The only way to go up against it was to allow Ra Naga to finish even
though it went against everything he'd ever been taught by his clan.

There was a pause in Ra Naga's speech, then it picked back up again. It took a
moment for Kakarotto to realize that the Kir was now speaking to him.

"I see you survived your time in the desert," he said pleasantly
without turning around. "Miraculous, really, considering how sloppy the
stitches were and the fact that you had no provisions. I didn't want you to be
sewn up at all, but Tet Suel thought it cruel. He paid for his kindness to
animals, however."

Kakarotto asked very quietly, "What did you do to him?" Even though he
had performed a ceremony with him as the centerpiece, even though he had done an
incredibly bad job stitching up the wound he himself had made, he could tell
that Tet Suel hadn't wanted to do it. He hadn't wanted to hurt him but he'd had
no other choice besides death. And, to Kakarotto, that was not an option.

"If you really want to know so badly, you can ask him in Hell. You'll be
headed there in just a few moments, anyway." Ra Naga had turned to look
over his shoulder at the teen when he spoke his last sentence, but then he
turned back to the portal as the spell reached its climax. The light grew to an
intensity twice that of before and seemed to explode outward, temporarily
blinding Kakarotto and causing Ra Naga to laugh with glee. It had apparently
gathered enough energy to open the gateway and Kakarotto could see a world
beyond the one he was standing in, a world of shadows.

"The offspring of the Great One opens the door to our paradise. As long as
I have it, my requests will not be ignored."

"Don't you know what the Darkness will do to this world?" he asked in
a final desperate attempt to halt Ra Naga's mad scheme.

"Of course I know. But knowing and caring are two entirely separate things,
aren't they?" Slowly, but steadily, he began to walk towards the gateway.
"Better say your prayers. It'll all be over for you soon." He started
to laugh again, but the sound abruptly ended in a croak. His dark eyes flew open
wide and he stared down at the sword now protruding from his body. "You're
not supposed to attack your enemies from behind. Didn't anyone ever teach you
that it was bad manners?" His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper.

"No," Kakarotto said as he pulled the blade free. "But, then
again, they taught me hand-to-hand combat, not swordplay."

His victim sank down onto his knees, hands coming up to clutch at the seeping
wound. "It doesn't matter what you do to me," the barbarian said with
a triumphant air. "The Great One will still be free." He maintained
his fanatical grin even beyond his death.

Kakarotto wiped Vegeta's sword on the man's tunic and re-sheathed it. He
honestly didn't think he would need it in the upcoming battle, but it wouldn't
hurt to bring it along. Better safe than sorry and all that.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped through the gateway and into the world of
darkness beyond. It was cold, the kind that sank deep within you to latch onto
your bones and never let go. He took another deep breath and the air nearly
seared his lungs.

"This is for everyone who has died because of this creature, or will
die if I fail," he whispered fervently. Raising his head high, he set off
to meet his destiny.

The final flash of light from the opening of the gateway could be seen
throughout the castle and its grounds. The soldiers on the battlements and in
the corpse-ridden courtyard, both Saiya-jin and Kir alike, all looked up at the
sky. When the battle began it had been partially cloudy, but now the clouds were
darkening to black with flashes of white lightning occasionally brightening
them. Within moments it was so dark that torches had to be lit before the
fighting could continue.

King Vegeta never removed his eyes from the sky. It was sinister and
threatening. Unnatural. Perverse. And if that foreign Saiya-jin boy didn't
succeed with his mission, they would be looking forward to spending the rest of
their lives under this midnight sky.

"Don't let any of them escape!" he bellowed at his men, wanting
nothing more than to see the flagstones run red with Kir blood. If he could not
personally kill the one responsible for all of this, he could at least vent his
anger out on those who allied with him. Drawing his own sword, the King of Saiya
stepped into the fray.

***

He saw nothing save the dark sky and dead earth and heard nothing beyond the
sound of wind rushing past his ears. But he could feel something hovering
nearby, something very large and incomprehensibly graceful. It slithered around
his body, sometimes reaching out to caress his exposed skin. Kakarotto shivered
and desperately pleaded with his magic to respond as he spoke the incantation to
create a light.

The world lit up around him and he found that he was not where he was a moment
ago. In fact, he was in a place that was very familiar to him and should have
been impossible to return to. Everywhere he looked he could see men and women
going about their daily business and children playing games in the street. It
was Nohin e Kul, the Home of the Guardians. His home.

The buildings and adults around him suddenly began to grow taller. He gasped,
looking up at them with wide eyes. When two children ran up to him, smiling,
their hands outstretched, he knew that it was not that they had grown taller,
but that he had shrunk. He was now the same size he had been on that fateful day
four years ago.

"Come play with us, Kakarotto!" the girl said, tugging on his hand
insistently. Ichigo looked exactly like how he remembered. Her wild black hair
was pulled into two messy pigtails and she wore a little green dress, her feet
bare. "Kabocha and I found something really neat in the forest."

"Yeah! You have to come!" Kabocha tugged on his other hand. His
hair was cut unevenly short as his father had simply taken a knife to it and
hacked off large portions. He only wore a pair of pants cut above his knees.
Both children were tanned brown from being outdoors in the sun all day, as was
he. Once his training was complete for the day, he, Ichigo, and Kabocha had
played outside until the sun went down for as long as the weather remained warm.

Kakarotto blinked in confusion. Had? Why was he thinking of everything in
past-tense? His friends were here, everyone was here, and the village was
exactly the same as always. Why was he just standing here when he could be
playing?

The three of them ran off into the forest that cradled the village on three
sides. The fragrant smell of evergreens assaulted Kakarotto's senses, bringing
back memories of childhood. He blinked again in confusion, but quickly shook it
off.

Ichigo and Kabocha led him to a small gully where a creature had dug a burrow
into the side of the hill. Ichigo held up a finger to her lips and indicated
that he should look inside. Dropping to his knees, he did as instructed.

It was dark and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. After a short while,
Kakarotto could see the outline of a small creature within the hole. Luminous
green eyes each with a slitted vertical black pupil stared at him. He thought it
was a cat and reached out to pet it (not pausing to realize that cats weren't
known to inhabit burrows) and the creature hissed at him, lunging at his hand
with sharp, needle-like teeth. Kakarotto let out a startled cry and fell
backward, the little creature following.

In the sunlight he could make out midnight black scales and small wings as the
creature rose in the air to dive at his body. Instinctively he raised his hands
to protect his face as terror filled his body. He could feel something flowing
through him like liquid fire to emerge from his palms at the little flying
creature. It shrieked briefly then all was silent.

He opened his eyes and looked around. There was no dangerous creature
threatening to hurt him nor was there trees surrounding him, their branches
forming a canopy over his head. His friends were gone as well, vanished like
they'd never existed in the first place. As more memories returned to him, he
realized that they hadn't been there. They couldn't have been because
they had died four years ago. Narrowing his eyes, he looked around with intense
suspicion. There was nothing to see, not really, unless dark endlessness
appealed to him.

Getting to his feet, he felt a heaviness on his side that indicated that
Vegeta's sword had somehow returned. He couldn't see it, however. The darkness
was so complete that he couldn't even see his hand in front of his face. If only
he could make a light. There was something in the darkness with him, something
he would very much like to be able to see.

'Please,' he silently begged, 'let my magic work again.' Taking a
deep breath, he spoke the incantation and a small globe of white light appeared
in his cupped palms. He willed it to become larger until it was the size of a
small wagon then tossed it up into the air. It illuminated a small patch of dead
earth around him, but could not penetrate any more of the darkness.

"Very good," a deep, cultured voice whispered. Kakarotto spun around,
his fists at the ready. There was no one around him; the voice was coming from a
source still unknown. "I'm glad that you've retained some of your spirit.
It's always disappointing when the prey doesn't fight back."

"Who are you?" He shouted the question. "Show yourself!"

His words elicited a chuckle. "Do you honestly believe that you're in a
position to demand anything?" The voice caressed his ear one second and was
coming from several hundred feet away the next. It really didn't matter whether
or not this entity offered his name. Kakarotto had a feeling he knew exactly who
he -- or it -- was.

"Yes, you're right," the voice praised him. "I am exactly who you
think I am, but not exactly what. You don't really know the answer to that
question, do you? Allow me to reveal myself, then." And, with those words,
Kakarotto's globe of light exploded.

When his vision returned, he was finally able to put sight to sound. A black
dragon was curled around him that was larger than most houses, its scales nearly
indistinguishable from the darkness pressing in around them both. Two large
green eyes with slitted black pupils stared at him from beneath protruding brow
ridges with an expression that bordered on glee.

The huge fanged mouth parted. "Am I everything that you expected me to
be?"

"No. The writings left behind by the elves don't go into detail about what
the Darkness looks like."

"What a shame." The body surrounding him shifted as the dragon moved
closer still. "And now no one will ever know because you won't be around to
tell them."

Kakarotto gathered as much energy as he could in his legs, preparing himself to
escape the confines of the dragon's body. "So you say." In a burst of
movement, he jumped as high as he could, placing one hand onto the surprisingly
cool scales on the dragon's back and vaulted over its body. He moved away as far
as he could so that he had time to assess the situation. Things did not look
good.

Every part of the dragon's body that he could see was covered by scales that
were incredibly hard (as his one brief touch of them had discovered). So far, he
could only see one unprotected area and that was the eyes. And possibly the
underbelly. However, neither of those potential targets were easy to get to.

The dragon did not attack him while he stood there and that came as a surprise.
Kakarotto had been on guard from the moment his feet regained contact with what
passed as the ground in this world yet he hadn't needed to be. The Dark One
watched and waited for a reason that escaped the teen's comprehension.

"Why do you seek to destroy our world?" he asked, trying to stall for
more time. He also hoped that he could get his opponent to lower his guard
enough for him to strike.

"Who said anything about destroying it? I want to own it. This world
has no life other than my own. Without lives to play with at my leisure, I grow
very, very bored."

"The world on the other side of that gateway does not belong to you. It
doesn't even belong to any of us. It can only belong to itself. I will die
before I allow you to escape."

"Then so be it," he intoned, whipping his tail towards Kakarotto at a
speed that was surprising given his size. Kakarotto was able to dodge the first
swing, but missed the second as the dragon quickly changed direction and
reversed. It knocked him from his feet to land several feet away, his hands
reaching out at the last moment to turn his fall into an awkward flip. He spun
around to confront the dragon again, his hand reaching for the hilt of his
lover's sword.

The dragon seemed to grin at him. "The sword is not your weapon,
youngling."

"How do you know this about me?" Kakarotto wondered aloud.

"I know because I dream. In this land of shadow and death, there is nothing
to do but dream and some dreams are more interesting than others. I've
followed your life because you fascinate me. I know your strengths and I know
your weaknesses. There is nothing that you could do that would surprise
me."

He seemed so certain of this that Kakarotto began to falter. If there was no
element of surprise then he didn't see how he could defeat him. His hand gripped
the hilt of the sword tightly, but he did not draw it.

They stared at each other. The dragon had a somewhat smug look while Kakarotto's
face was one of growing despair.

"How did you make me see things that weren't there?" he asked, trying
to stall for more time. Distantly he could hear something that sounded very much
like thunder.

"They were there, once, and you wish to see them again. It was simple to do
since you wish that things had turned out differently with all of your heart and
soul. Sometimes spending so much time in the past blinds you to the
present."

The sound grew louder and was accompanied by tremors in the earth. High above
their heads, flashes of what could be called lightning were visible, but the
electric streaks were not white but a deep crimson. The ground shook again, this
time hard enough to make Kakarotto stumble.

"There's no time," the dragon rumbled. He rushed at the teen, his
mouth open with the intent to do serious harm. Kakarotto finally drew the blade
that hung at his side and raised it in defiance. When the Dark One was close
enough, he lunged forward with the intent of impaling him, but found it brushed
aside by one huge wing as if it were a bothersome insect. Kakarotto, his grip
strong, went with it.

"Now, it's time for me to leave before this entire place collapses around
us," the dragon said. "Entrance into this world was meant only to be
one-way."

"I will delay you so long that it will be too late to find the
gateway." Kakarotto's face was a mask of determination. "Even if I
can't kill you myself, I can allow the forces here to do it for me."

"You will die as well."

"Then so be it." He threw the dragon's earlier words back into his
face. "My death will have meaning if I take you along with me."

The dragon emitted a deep bass growl of annoyance. "I don't have any more
time to play with you." The wings on his back began to flex as he readied
himself to take to the air. The lightning was coming with more frequency to the
point that most of the sky was red, the thunder was quickly nearing a level that
would make conversation impossible, and the restless motion of the earth ensured
that Kakarotto would be better off crawling than walking. He pushed all of this
to the back of his mind, however. There was only one thing he concerned himself
with now and that was stopping the black dragon.

He quickly ran through his mental catalogue of spells, searching for one that
would be powerful enough to delay even something as large as the Darkness
itself. As he had only been twelve when his lessons had abruptly been cut off,
there were precious few in his repertoire that could get the job done. Murmuring
the words to a fire spell, he tried to magnify it so that it would engulf the
entire beast and watched it collide with the armor-like scales, disappearing
into nothingness. He tried again with little success.

By this time, the dragon was a fair ways above ground and almost out of his
range. He followed him as fast as he could while weaving still more spells, all
of them having a similar effect as his first -- that is, no effect at all. His
energy was giving out and that would directly affect the strength of his magic,
not to mention how closely he could keep up. The distance was slowly becoming
greater between the two of them and he could now see the gateway in the
distance. It was only a matter of time before the dragon would get there and
Kakarotto didn't even know if he could get himself out to go after him.

When he stumbled and fell the next time, he did not get up.

As he lay there out of breath, his lungs and legs burning from exertion, images
came unbidden to his mind. He could see his parents, his friends, his master,
the village elders, and all of the other people that had made Nohin e Kul home.
They were all trying to speak to him, their mouths moving soundlessly. They also
all seemed to be patting their chests -- no; they were patting their hearts.
Slowly, Kakarotto pushed himself up to his knees and brought one hand up to
touch the place over his heart. Even through his tunic he could feel that his
skin was warm, strangely warm, almost to the point of being feverish. As he held
his hand there, a white light began to envelop it. It coalesced into an orb of
softly pulsing light that sat in the palm of his hand.

"Use us." It was a whisper that didn't come from without but
from within. "Use us to defeat the Darkness."

A slow smile spread across his face. "I will. By right, this is your
battle."

"No; this is the battle of the Saiya-jin, of the humans, of the elves --
of everyone."

"Yes," he agreed. Raising his hand up to the sky he threw the glowing
ball that was the collective spirits of his lost people in the direction that
the dragon had flown. Everywhere the orb touched the darkness was driven away so
he had a clear line of sight to the death of the dragon. The orb entered into
his body, passing through scales and flesh and muscle as if it wasn't there, and
tore him apart from the inside. That was the only way he could explain it. One
moment the dragon had been speeding towards the open gateway and the next there
were little fragments of darkness flying off into the areas that the light had
not touched before he could even scream. Instead of vanishing after its job was
complete, the little orb continued on a course to the gateway as if lighting the
way for him. Kakarotto tried to push himself up from his knees to his feet and
his arms gave out. The last thing he saw before falling into unconsciousness was
the orb streaking back to help him.
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Passport to Paradise