Just A Face

**I in no way own the characters. For that matter I do not know the omnipotent creator. (Unfortunately), therefore suing me would do you no good. For I am a poor college student who is spending her spare time creating stories based on her childish infatuation with the fictional protectors of Earth.**


I sat there quietly watching as the childlike man before me, built our log cabin. It was miles away from his home, my home, and the city. The images of his beaten wife refused to leave my mind. Her pain and sorrow filled eyes nagged at my soul. What had she done that caused the innocents to pour out of him? I made the silent vow to find out. If it was the last thing I did I would find out what made him explode.

“Finished ’Geta” He mumbled to me. His head still hung in shame. A shame I will never let him live down. What he had done, still hours later, made my stomach turn. She was an innocent, much like he was. She was and will always be weak in our standards. Even I, the destroyer of planets, races, lives, could never raise a finger to women and children. It made me ilery ery time I blew a planet to dust, just knowing that the helpless were still there watching, praying, begging for their lives. But he, he would have taken it, that life without a second thought.

“Don’t just stand there, baka, find us dinner!” I watched as he scampered away like a lost child in search of the family that abandoned him. I felt his power fluctuate and return to normal. For a brief moment the idea that he had become ‘Kakorot’ again rose in my mind. Would I end up like his little woman, or would I be able to fend him off until he settled again?

In all my years of travel I had never seen anything like him. He was beautiful, merciful, innocent, ugly, merciless, dark. I have never truly feared for my life or the life of the people I claim to like until I met the real Goku. The Goku who is so willingly accepting his punishments.

He came back to the house carrying a large dead beast. It’s species, indiscernible, after Kakorot got to him. Its face was torn from its body. The head was barely held on by the flimsy spine. The color of its fur melted into burnt flesh. Whatever it was had not stood a chance against this chaste man.

Kakorot smirked as he shoved a long tree limb through the dead beast, readying it for cooking. He started a fire and just let it burn, the smell of cooking flesh made me sick, just knowing how it died and who, rather what, killed it. He was no longer a who. He does not deserve that, he was a what.

I watched in horrified fascination as he licked the blood off of his fingers. His tongue darted over each digit, his lips closing over the flesh until each hand was free of blood. I should have been proud that he was embracing his heritage, finally embracing his people. I should have been excited that he was dropping his feint, but it was just wrong. Watching him adopt this behavior made me shiver. Deep down I knew this was not what he wanted. The thought of indulging in blood made him sick, it always had.

He wiped his muscular hands down the front of his dirty cloths and tore the legs off the roasting beast. He offered me the other leg and I took it reluctantly, wondering if I would be able to swallow this masticated beast. He flopped down on the ground and started to inhale the sizzling meat. The only sounds I could hear were his breathing and chewing.

I just stared at his immense beauty. The innocents and naivety was gone forever but what was left was horrifying and magnificent. I berated myself at that moment for digressing from that hate I should have been feeling. But was I wrong for still longing for the beast before me? Should I forever hold the images of his battered wife in my mind and deign the lustful craving I had of him?

“I never loved her ‘Geta, but I never wanted that. You know it?” I looked at him in a way I had never looked at him before. He had stopped chewing on his meat, grease smeared all over his porcelain skin. His eyes shimmered with worry and doubt. “I didn’t even know what marriage was. She tricked me. She said if I won I had to marry her, if I lost I didn’t. Vegeta I can’t lose, it’s not in me to lose. It never was. I never wanted to hurt her, I never wanted to see her in pain, I just never wanted her.” His large ebony eyes darted to the ground, his chest heaved in a sigh. He looked absolutely lost, more so than I was.

I had no idea where this came from. What he was going through to be the innocent man that I longed for. His pain. The pain I could see burned from deep within his soul. I had a feeling that this was only the beginning of the pain he suffered. The agonizing standards placed on him. The standards that were never placed on my head, but doubled for him when I came.

“What did you want Kakorot? What did you want from this world Goku?” I said it. I said his Earth born name. It had poured from my mouth before I could hold it back, before I knew it was coming. Like vomit it sprayed and I could not take it back. But did I really want too?

“To be happy.” For the second time today tears threatened to fall from his beautiful eyes. At this moment he looked more immaculate than he had ever in all of the years I had known him. All the years I thought I knew him, I never really did know him. I saw what he wanted to me see, the facade, the act, the mask, his face.

“Happiness can not be a constant state Kakorot. It is rather moments, that take searching in order to achieve. My happiness rarely comes from being in the presents of others but rather when I fight. Ready to destroy. When I fly alone, for miles, watching the world carry on below me and knowing I could end them all with a single movement of my hand. When I eat. Consume the dead and burnt flesh and meat of a once living creature. My happiness Kakorot comes from death. From where does yours stem.”

“Is it wrong to say from times like these?”

“From times you tired to kill your mate?”

“No, from times like this.” He motioned around us, “When I am with you, or Piccolo, or Gohan, or Goten just in the woods. Without the sounds of people. Without Chichi yelling in my ears. Her voice gives me a head ach Vegeta. It’s so shrill.” He looked down at the ground again and sighed. “Is that wrong?”

“Is happiness wrong?”

“Yes and no.”

“How do you mean Kakorot?”

“When it hurts someone else it is wrong.”

“And tell me who are you hurting, sitting here eating you supper, talking to your prince in a forest surrounded by more forest, that is surrounded by more forest, that is surrounded by even more forest before it even comes close to touching the civilized world. Who does this hurt?”

He sighed. “No one but everyone all at once. They expect me there, Geta. I am suppose to be there. And yet I never am. I always leave, I have too. I can’t say with them Vegeta. I can’t fake that smile one more time. I can’t pretend what they say doesn’t hurt. I can act like my wife is in charge all of the time. What does that make me look like? The savior of the Earth bowing down to his tiny little wife. Vegeta I just wanted to make it all stop.”

His words ran together and I could hear and feel the pain in his voice. It was almost to much for even me to bare. I wanted to take that pain from him. Take it like he had taken mine all those years ago when he let me live here. Let me mate with his beautiful friend. Let me have my disgusting children. Let me be who I truly was. I fighter, a killer, a proud Saiyan. He let me have all of that, let his friends have what they were, be who they are, and never judged them. Why could they not grand him the same courtesy? Why did he not demand it?

“You’re the only one I have ever told this too. You’re the only one who has ever asked ‘Geta.”

“It should not have been that way Kakorot.”

“But it was and it is. ‘Geta I am not a stupid person.”

“I figured as much.”

“But some things I just can’t grasp. Some things I don’t need to understand. I just don’t.”

I nodded. I knew what he spoke of. Humans are so caught up in education, higher learning that they can not see the miracles of others, the greater things. They can not see the glories that others behold unless they have a degree, a piece of paper, with a name, a simple name, from a place, a building on it. Humans believe that they are better than those who do not have these meaningless pieces of paper. This belief has gone so far and has become so strong that those without it will lie, will forge, will cheat just to achieve a greatness. This greatness. A greatness of a piece of paper, made from a tree, a living thing, that has spent hundreds of years growing, just to be cut down and handed to a person. All for the jaded misconception of greatness.

“Was it horrible Vegeta?”

“Was what horrible?”

“In the kitchen today, was it horrible?”

“Would you like me to lie to caress your ego or tell you the truth and hurt you even further?”

“The truth would be a nice change of pace from what I am use to.”

“It was horrible.”

“Will she be ok?”

“Yes. She will be fine.”

“Did I loose what little respect you had for me?”

“To an extent, but with time it will return. It always does. The truth is all I ask from you and that is what you have been giving me today.”

“Oh.” He looked both pleased and saddened by what I had said. I felt a pang of guilt swell within myself. But like always it vanished quickly. No emotion built a home in my heart for to long. It is too cold to live in a place like that.

“Vegeta?”

“Hm?”

“Why did you say yes to dinner tonight?”

“Do you want the truth or would you like me to lie?” I smirked and his soft chuckle drifted to my ears.

“What do you think?”

“Ah the lie.”

“Vegeta.” He smiled, a genuine smile. A smile that I have not seen on him for a long time. The smile I only see when he fights, when his soul is free. Free from the chains created by society. Free from the world he was forced into. Free from the hell that should have been his heaven. When he got to be the Saiyan he truly is. When he is simply just free.

“I came to your home tonight, to watch your wife.” He looked at me with raised eyebrows. Shock written in all of his features. “To watch her squirm, see her temper, to agitate her. It is a feeling that I have long since enjoyed, the moment I realized how deep her hate ran for me.”

“So did you see what you came for?”

“I saw more.”

“Not exactly what you were looking for was it?”

“No not quite, but close.” I smirked. What else was there left for me to do? “I saw more than I had expected. I saw what you could be and who you are. I saw an innocent man forced into the jaded existence that I for so long have endured. Kakorot I saw my moment to find a shred of decency. I found a piece of myself that has been missing. I found it at your home, tonight, through you and your wife. I saw what I could be and who I should have been.”

His eyes glistened, with what I do not know, be it pain, happiness, love, lust, power, loss, hate, understanding, misunderstanding. Perhaps it was all of them. Everything any one being could feel. But they glistened. In the setting sun and burning flame his eyes out shinned it all. His soul burned in those eyes and for the briefest of moments I truly saw all of the man before me. I saw his confusion and understanding. I saw his hand and his lust. I saw Kakorot and I saw Goku. In those large, glistening, eyes I saw life.


***Well I know where it’s going, but it may not be as simple as it looks like it could be. Or maybe it will be. Thank you all who took time ime to read the first chapter and especially to all of those who reviewed. Hugs all of you. If I could pull up the internet I would thank all of you individually, unfortunately I can not. I have a ghetto ten year old computer and it take it a longe toe to do anything let alone have more than one program up at a time. Well much love to all of you, Noel***